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Steph Curry
From The Atlantic on Steph Curry and the impact Davidson had on his career.
Before Stephen Curry was everything, there was Davidson
DAVIDSON, N.C. — Kevin Oleksiak, a senior for UNC Greensboro, wasn’t exactly offended Steph Curry was defending him. But he certainly noticed who wasn’t defending him.
Max Paulhus Gosselin, a 6-foot-6 wing who eventually was named the Southern Conference Defensive Player of the Year, was who Davidson put on the opponent’s best perimeter player. And he was defending Mikko Koivisto, Greensboro’s other guard. Which meant Oleksiak had Curry, a smaller and thinner sophomore, in front of him.
“They obviously think Mikko is more of a threat than me,” said the 6-4 guard from Pennsylvania. “I’m gonna come out and be extra aggressive.”
Oleksiak made his first seven shots, punishing the Davidson defense as Greensboro built a 20-point first-half lead. Fleming Gym was rocking this night, Feb. 13, 2008. See, Davidson came to town on a 13-game win streak. They had competitive losses to No. 1 North Carolina, Duke, UCLA and North Carolina State on their non-conference schedule. So Davidson was well groomed and ripping through its SoCon slate.
Something happened with the Wildcats’ one-and-a-half-hour trip to Greensboro. The bus arrived late and impacted their warmups. The whole team started cold. Greensboro went into the locker room feeling like the hype of Davidson, and Curry, wasn’t justified. Oleksiak was feeling like this was his night.
“And then that second half,” Oleksiak said, “he took over. In that second half, he was just like, ‘I’m on a different level than everyone else on this court. Hey, everyone, get on my back. I’m gonna win this.’”
Curry scored 23 in the second half and finished with a then-career-high 41. He scored 15 during a 24-5 run as Davidson roared back for their 14th straight win.
“So I think that was when we were like, ‘Alright. This guy actually is pretty special.”
Before elevating Golden State’s moribund franchise. Before becoming an MVP and capturing the imagination of the sport. Before becoming a champion. Before the debates about where he ranks among the greats. Before becoming a global icon and admired citizen. Before — “Finally,” athletic director Chris Clunie said — becoming a Finals MVP and stamping his legend. There was Davidson.
Some 20 miles north of Charlotte, ever so fittingly off Exit 30 on I-77, is 665 acres of manicured grass, fancy brick buildings and antebellum homes, all embedded in trees that whistle from the winds off nearby Lake Norman, where the superhero figure got his superpowers. Where young adults congregate at burger joints and dorm lounges for fun. Where one-lane roads, jogging neighbors and elders with warm eyes remind that leisure is the local pace. Where the dress code is comfortable and the vibe affluent. Where small-town smiles and kind gestures seek to compensate for rampant privilege and lacking diversity. Where jocks and geniuses, artists and activists, are indoctrinated alike with values of service and community steeped in the school’s Presbyterian heritage and liberal arts bent. Where red is an emotion and a statement as much as a color. Where, unbeknownst to everyone, the foundation of an NBA legend was being laid.
Wednesday, he was back. Curry was welcomed by No. 30 jerseys and spray-painted greetings on white sheets hanging from porches and trees. He was serenaded by a packed Belk Arena, buzzing with students geeked that this Warrior is also a Wildcat and alum, who still awe at the prestige he’s delivered since 2008. He was anointed as their favored son, beloved brother and embodiment of every ideal crammed into their mission statement.
“Everybody sees the polished, finished product on the court,” Curry said. “They see these Finals runs. They see the impact I try to have off the floor. But I think these are moments to reflect on where it all started.”
In front of his wife, whom he called 13 years ago crying, torn over whether to stay swaddled in one more year of Davidson love or be an NBA lottery pick. In front of his three children, all old enough to remember the cherishing of his dad. In front of his parents, fighting back tears born of pride in a son who continues to impress. In front of old friends and former teammates who make sure the celebrity knows he’s one of the guys. In front of teachers who supported and prodded him.
The 3-point king was the honoree in a three-part celebration. The first was a full graduation ceremony, with a procession and all, for the lone and most famous graduate, to give him his Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. The second was his induction into the Davidson Sports Hall of Fame, which came with a gold medal medallion on a red ribbon. The third was to put No. 30 in the rafters, never to be worn again, the school’s first and only retired number for any sport.
Davidson is where his confidence on the court hit puberty. Davidson is where he learned to blend his individual brilliance with a team motif. Davidson is where it became clear the road to greatness has no shortcuts and no chauffeurs — a lesson that started taking root after his first practice when he got kicked out for being late and trying to sneak in like he wasn’t. Davidson is where he was constantly reminded of the resilience needed to finish what he started, the spirit that kept him tethered to the Warriors through the rough early years and eventually earned him his college degree. Davidson is where he was first fitted for stardom, and learned to tailor his special brand of celebrity to include humility and purpose.
It wasn’t lost on Curry, as love from some 5,000 people took his breath away, the value of this place, which prompted him to send thank you cards to alums after he was drafted No. 7 overall in 2009. It’s instantly recognizable, the role this community had in shaping the face of the NBA.
After committing 13 turnovers in his first college game, a home win over Eastern Michigan, Davidson coach Bob McKillop played his true freshman 35 minutes the next day. Against Michigan. In Ann Arbor.
He took 15 threes in that game, the second of his college career. In his sixth game, he took 20, making nine against Colby. The audaciousness sprouted at Davidson.
“One thing I like about him,” said Dontaye Draper, a guard for College of Charleston who faced Curry three times, “he was little, but he was fearless. He’d miss like four in a row and come right back and make the next one. He didn’t care.”
Google “Stephen Curry I love the commons” and see the origins of the jovial celebrations and willing self-deprecation.
“So all of that has given me a sense of gratitude, a sense of work ethic, a sense of running my own race,” Curry said. “I don’t know what it would look like if I went anywhere else. If I went to a high (Division I), or a power-conference school. I don’t know what my career would have looked like. But I do know that I got to come here and, again, just blossom at my own pace and had the confidence of a coach that really felt like I could be that guy.”
The Wildcats had put together back-to-back 20-win seasons and made the 2006 NCAA Tournament when Curry arrived on campus. Everyone knew he was Dell Curry’s kid. But he hardly invoked fear in opponents. His 6-3, 185 pounds felt like a generous listing when he walked on the court.
His 32 points and nine rebounds at Michigan made it clear he was a good player. And he almost immediately tormented defenses with his off-ball movement and quick release. But back then, in 2006-07, Draper was more the guard that worried defenses. He was a 5-foot-10 athletic type, tough like his Baltimore hometown and quick. He spent the summer working out with Carmelo Anthony and new College of Charleston coach Bobby Cremins, the longtime Georgia Tech coach, moved Draper to off guard so he could attack more. He came into his senior season, Curry’s freshman year, looking to get to the NCAA Tournament on his last dance. Draper put up 38 in the conference semifinal and was one win away.
But like so many others, Draper had his hopes splashed away. In the SoCon title game, Curry had 29 points to lift the Wildcats back into the tournament.
“Davidson, they play smart, the right way,” said Draper, who played more than a decade overseas. “And they literally come down and do the same exact thing every time. The point guard dribbles all the way to the free-throw line, and they got Steph and those guys coming off screens. You couldn’t make mistakes against them and we made a few mistakes. Steph had a big 3. I remember that.”
When Draper graduated and started his pro career, Curry was but a good player in a great program. But people he knew that kept tabs on the conference kept telling him sophomore Curry was different.
A year later, he ended Oleksiak’s college career in the conference semifinals with a 26-point game, then dropped 23 in a win over Elon in the championship game. What followed was the tournament run that would initiate the legend. It would lead to national prominence for Davidson. And a move to the Atlantic 10 conference. And no doubt more red Davidson jersey sales than ever before.
And that led to the NBA success. The permanent alteration of basketball. The historic dynasty. And the full-circle moment on Wednesday, on the court he and his wife donated in honor of McKillop, when he got the flowers he waited 13 years to receive.
That’s how this thing was built — gradually, element by element, until the bedrock was in place. No one foresaw an NBA superstar would emerge from those humble beginnings. Those who saw him early say anyone who claims to have predicted this from Curry is lying. But looking back, those are Davidson bricks at the base.
“This is an absolutely amazing day,” Curry said. “An amazing moment for myself, for my family. Heard a lot of amazing words and stories and memories from childhood to high school, to the best decision I ever made — to come to Davidson College and pursue an amazing education.”
Oleksiak still gets a bit of a sting whenever he hears or sees Davidson, the rival that deprived him of glory. Even though Curry was a primary reason, he can’t help but feel the opposite about the former Davidson star. Even in losing to Curry, Oleksiak was rewarded. His father, Kevin, never let anyone forget his son scored 26 points against Stephen Curry. His co-workers, his friends, anyone who would listen, heard him brag about his son’s great college game against a future legend. He even showed them pictures of his boy matched up with Curry.
Oleksiak’s father died a couple of months ago. The grief is still raw. The disbelief was still present. But Wednesday, as Curry was honored with a trifecta, it gave reason to remember where his journey began. At Davidson. Curry’s jersey retirement, Hall of Fame induction and solo graduation was a reminder to Oleksiak that he was a small part in Curry’s miraculous rise, yet big enough to make his father proud.
"Unbelievably Direct Communicator"
“But the thing that struck me most then and strikes me every day now is, he is an unbelievably direct communicator. He tells you precisely what he thinks. He is not going to sugarcoat something or say something he doesn’t believe in. It sets him apart in many ways.”
- Jack Swarbrick, Notre Dame Athletic Director, on new football coach Marcus Freeman
Leeds United
A good look at how Jesse Marsch, who is from Wisconsin, took over Leeds United and is implementing his own style. Imagine the pressure of trying to change a culture while also avoiding relegation?
"We can't feel too good about ourselves, we can't feel too bad about ourselves. We just have to have a relentless commitment to keep moving forward. The goal isn't to have total harmony, but to create a common understanding as to what we are, our identity and to commit to that every day. I don't have a problem of telling somebody if they're not carrying their weight, or of telling them how disappointed or angry I am because I will protect the environment above everything. That's the most important thing: it's not harmony, it's about identity, expectation and making sure that in every way we're maximising the potential of each other and of the group every day."
First Team Meeting
- It will not go the way you think.
- We are all on the same team
- Richard Pitino writes this on the board for his team's first meeting of the season.
Things I've learned about the first team meeting of the year:
- You aren't getting all of the messages you want across.
- It's better to talk less and listen more.
- Ask questions and hear your team.
- Who do you guys want to be?
- What's important to you?
- How good can we be?
- How are we going to get there?
- Start the process of ownership of your culture for them.
- Let them know how hard it's going to be.
- It's too early to name captains.
- Don't set numerical goals - set goals for how you are going to compete every day.
- Take everything you want to say and throw 75% of it out - it's too much.
- People don't buy what you do. They buy why you do it.
- Let them know who you are.
- Ask them about the pre-season.
- The less absolutes you declare the better.
- Be absolute when it comes to academics, punctuality and respect.
- Don't paint yourself into a corner with penalties - you don't know what's coming.
- It's a marathon, not a sprint.
- The path to success is not linear.
- Your culture takes shape gradually, over time. You can't force it.
Losing
What can you do to turn things around when your team is losing?
When I became a head coach in 2005 at Rhode Island College in 2005 I took over the best team in the league. We were good enough to win games regardless of the mistakes I made. When I became the head coach at Maine in 2014, I took over the worst team in the league. We weren't good enough to win no matter what I did. I gained a lot of valuable experience as a head coach with both winning and losing.
Understand The Pulse Of Your Team
Any important decisions you make as a leader start with the pulse of your team. You really have to know what makes them tick as individuals and as a group. That is harder to due when your team is really struggling, especially with a new team.
When you are losing your approach tends to drift away from the people on your team and how to connect with them. The overall mindset becomes "we just aren't good enough" and you need an overhaul. I know when I got there as a coach, the individual mentality didn't matter to me as much as it should have. It was a major reconstruction project and this was how we were going to do it long-term, and connecting with the players wasn't as important. We cared about them and we tried to make them better, but changing the mindset became a group thing, with individual personalities not being as important. That made change that much harder.
Some teams are really loose and a little bit wild, and maybe they need things to be tightened up a bit to change the narrative. Other teams are too rigid and put a lot of pressure on themselves to perform, and that has a negative impact. Understand what type of team you have to help find your way out of it.
Any type of meaningful change is still about connecting with individuals mentally and establishing and maintaining buy-in. Motivating players when you are winning and they are playing well isn't that difficult. Connecting with them to get more out of them when they are losing is really hard, and knowing who they are and how to get to them is crucial. Don't lose sight of who they are because you are losing.
Evaluate Their Ability
Talent matters. Some players are good enough and some aren't. When you are going through a losing streak, make sure you are honest with what your players are capable of. Are you putting them in position to be successful? Are they good enough to do what you ask?
When you are trying to shake things up to get your team out of a rut, make sure you are putting them in the best position to win. It's not a bad idea to mix it up. But it is easy to make things worse. If you are struggling to shoot the ball and you are shooting a lot of 3s, maybe you aren't as good a shooting team as you think. If you have a great post player who you keep feeding inside but he can't finish, maybe you need to different approach.
It's so easy when you are losing to get pissed off at your players and blame them. Sometimes they aren't good enough. Make sure you are asking them to do stuff they are capable of doing before you hammer them about the way they are playing.
Look Inward
Take a look at how your actions and tone have changed as your team has started to struggle. Are you being consistent with who you are and your organization's core values? Do they still see someone they can trust every day?
Taking responsibility is a great way to show vulnerability to your team and the value of taking ownership. When my teams were struggling I felt one way to relieve a lot of pressure was to tell them it was ultimately my fault. I prepared this team to play a certain way, and we aren't playing that way. It's on me. But I'm going to keep working as hard as I can to get this right, as long as you guys are willing to do the same.
Ask some veteran guys that you trust how your own approach has changed in their eyes. Do they see the same guy they saw at the beginning of the year? Is the message still consistent and clear? Ask a lot of questions and listen. Having those conversations will teach you a lot about yourself and your team.
You want to end a losing streak by figuring out what your team can do better. Sometimes it's about figuring out what you can do better.
Change Something
Sometimes you just need to do something else. Make sure it sounds different and feels different to your team. Get them out of their rut and give them something to be excited about.
When we were struggling defensively at Maine I was continually pounding our guys on the defensive end. It was the emphasis every day. The drills were harder and longer. I was going to make sure the guys knew we were going to guard people no matter what. And it wasn't working.
I just decided to go the other way. Before we played Hartford after a tough loss at Stony Brook, I went completely opposite. I told our guys I wanted to try and score 100 points. That was it. That was the scouting report before Hartford. I didn't say anything about the defense, because the guys were tired of hearing about it. All we were going to do was try and score 100 points.
It definitely changed our guys mentality a bit. It gave them something to get excited about, something to smile about in practice. We had been losing game after game, so we needed something to change. We went out and beat Hartford in the next game, and we did score 100 points (although the game went to overtime, and it took us overtime to do it).
Stay Focused On Who You Are
Stay true to your core values and behaviors. Make sure that is how you continue to evaluate your team. Negative results can impact the way you see your team, and you have to fight that. The process is what really matters. If your team is competing the way you expect, make sure you celebrate that. Too much goes into the results that you can't control. Evaluate your team based on their approach every day and you'll continue to get their best.
Trust Relieves Pressure
I heayrd a really interesting take from Joel Sherman, a long-time reporter for the New York Post, on "The Captain," Derek Jeter's documentary about his career. If you are a Yankee fan or a Jeter fan, you'll find "The Captain" interesting and fun, but it's basically just a recap of his career.
Sherman was talking about the difference between the Yankee Dynasty (1996-2000) teams that one four World Series and the teams from the next decade who had a lot of talent and struggled to win. Jeter during those years used to always say "these teams are different" without elaborating on what the difference was.
Sherman said that the Yankee Dynasty teams had built up such a level of trust that the following teams didn't seem to have. He said the trust that was built relieved a ton of individual pressure in the locker room because there was so much trust and confidence that somebody would find a way to get the job done. The individual players didn't feel as much pressure because they knew the team as a collective could handle it.
I'd never heard a take like that on trust and the collective pressure, but it makes a lot of sense. When I first started coaching championship teams that were good year in and year out, the power of our trust in one another was tangible. It sounds silly, but I felt you could just see how much we trusted each other on the court. It was a collective mentality, borne of hours and hours in the gym with the right approach. The way we played, shared the ball, covered for each other and competed every day, you could tell how much we trusted one another and our approach.
I never thought about the concept that the trust helped relieve the pressure. Now that I've heard it, it fits perfectly with those great teams I coached. There was an ease about our mentality in tight games. We were confident and never got rattled, and if you were going to get us, you had to beat us. We never really gave in to the moment.
The level of trust we had for one another relieved us of individual pressure. No one person had really felt it, because they were surrounded by people they knew the could count on. Trust made it easier for us to come through in tough spots and win big games.
I've always felt strongly about the importance of trust in your culture, ever since I became a head coach. I never connected it to our ability to perform under pressure.
Teach Them How To Get Better
I remember talking with a Division I head coach a few years back about the summer access rules and our ability to work with our players in the off-season. He said "We really need it, because these kids don't know how to get better on their own." And my response was, "Well, if they played for you for a year, shouldn't they know how to get better on their own?"
Most players need to be taught how to get better on their own. What are they doing when they are alone in a gym or on the playground in the summer? There is a big difference between working on your game and shooting around, and at some point everyone needs to be taught. If you play a musical instrument, somebody taught you how to practice, and how to get better. You didn't just pick up the flute and start playing it. Somebody taught me math, and showed me the problems I needed to work on to get better at algebra. Similarly we need to teach our players how to get better.
I would say that most players when they get to college don't have a great idea how to get better when they are alone. I know there are workout people everywhere nowadays, and everyone has a guy or two that they "work out" with. It's not that hard to ask someone to work you out, rebound for you and pass you the ball - if you go hard, you'll get better at some rate. I'm talking about guys going to the gym by themselves, or with a teammate to work on their game.
If you are coaching in high school or college it's one of the most important things you can do. Show your kids how to get better when they are alone in a gym. They don't have to take a day off just because they don't have someone to work out with. Show them full-court ball-handling drills. Show them how to get shots and make one on one moves off of spin-outs to themselves. Show them the pace they need to work out at, and how to catch their breath shooting free throws in between drills.
Too many young players are reliant on other people to help them get better. They'll go to the park or the gym when there is pick-up to play, and they'll join a work out when someone has room for them. But when they are on their own, what are they doing? They need to be taught how to get better on their own.
"Live With Paradox"
"An ability to embrace new ideas, routinely challenge old ones, and live with paradox will be the effective leader's premier trait."
- Tom Peters
It's What You Do
When you take over an organization, it's natural to want to talk about who you are and your core values. You want to explain to your team everything your team will be about. It feels like you can't repeat the message enough.
I've learned that your team really won't understand your values until you see them in action. Long meetings with dialogue about what you are all about lose their impact quickly. As much as you feel the urge to share your core values and everything you stand for, words won't have a huge impact. They will figure out who you are and what's important to you through your actions every day. That is where you should focus.
We used the phrase "Win Anyway" as a way of illustrating our no excuses approach. The point was that no one cared about whatever adversity we may face. It was about the bottom line, getting the job done, regardless of what happened around us. I used to talk about that to my teams all of the time - Win Anyway. No excuses. That would be a big part of our core value of toughness.
But it struck me that those conversations lost energy pretty quickly. OK, coach, we've heard that before. Got it. They had heard what I said, and they weren't ignoring it, but it wasn't really resonating. When we got on the floor and something happened, and they head me talk about it - that's when it started to sink in. If someone thought they got fouled in practice but it wasn't called, they'd hear me say "Win Anyway." OK, you think you got fouled, you didn't get the call, what are you going to do about it? Somebody is going to win this drill, either you or them. How are you going to respond?
The message was so much more effective when they saw it in action and there was behavior connected to it. I could literally see the response on the floor, the determination to take what I had said and put it into action. I quickly realized that all the time I spent preaching to my team, especially when I first took over, wasn't nearly as effective.
I realize the pull you feel when you first take over to deliver a great message and to clearly define your core values. But the longer you stand in front of your team talking at them, the less impact you will have on them. Deliver your message with action, and let it happen naturally. Your team will start to believe in your values over time, it won't happen overnight. It happens when they see those values turn into action, when it becomes behavior.
What you do is much more important than what you say. Deliver the message with who you are every day.
How Do You Make Your Team Tougher?
"If you want a team that is tough, get tough players." - Jeff Van Gundy
I recently had this conversation with a couple of local high school coaches. How do you make your team tougher?
Get Tough Kids
Coach Van Gundy said it best - you want a tough team, get tough players. Maybe not that easy at the high school level. But if you really want a tough team, then you have to value toughness every step of the way. With whom you take on the team, who you decide to start, who gets the playing time, etc. Value toughness every step of the way.
Define It As Behavior
If it's a value for you, you have to define it for your team in behavioral terms. Yelling at your team "we need to be a lot tougher!" doesn't make your team any tougher. They have to know what it is you mean, and they have to understand it as behavior. What does toughness mean to you? The kid who turns the ball over, but sprints back to get a deflection and save an easy basket in transition is tough. The guard who gets stuck in the spot on a big and works his ass off to get around in front and challenge any pass inside is tough. The guy who sprints in for an offensive rebound from the perimeter and gets his hand on the ball to keep it alive is tough. Any player who competes with 100% effort is tough.
However you define toughness, show your team the behaviors that fit that definition.
Get Physical
It's hard to have a physically tough team that doesn't play physically tough in practice. It seems like a lot of coaches are more concerned with somebody getting hurt than they are with getting tougher. I don't want to get anyone hurt either. But I don't see a way to prepare for the toughness needed to win games without battling it out in practice. You can control the level of physicality (and how long you go) in practice. I'm not saying have brawls. But banging bodies is part of the game, and if you want to be tougher you have to get used to it. Physical drills help breed toughness.
Run. A Lot.
Conditioning is one of the more underrated elements of mental and physical toughness. My teams always ran a lot to get in great shape. Get your team into great shape and they'll feel a level of toughness that can come through in any situation. It's a mindset that tough teams have. Start some drills with a sprint or two and then get your team right into what you are doing. Force them to get stops late in practice when they are dead tired. A team that is in great shape and knows it will be tough as nails.
Tough Situations
Put your team in tough situations and make them come through. When you have an early morning practice, demand the same level of intensity and effort. When you played the night before and have another game to prepare for, expect the same approach. If it's your fourth or fifth straight day of practice in the pre-season, don't make any excuses for them.
Give them the rest they need when they need it, of course. But don't always take the easy way out. Create tough situations in practice (after running some sprints) and demand their best. Tough teams are borne out of coming through in tough situations.
Indifferent to Injuries
This might sound a little harsh, but don't make a big deal out of injuries. In fact, move past them as quickly as you can. Obviously you want to make sure your players are safe and take care of them if they are hurt. But when the trainer gets involved and everything is okay, keep it moving. If it a kid goes down with a turned ankle and is limping a bit, get the trainer on it and move forward. You don't have to stop practice and have everyone get a drink until you find out the extent of the injury. If you are out of the drill, see the trainer and he or she will take care of it. But practice is moving on. For the guys that are milking things a bit and just need a break, they'll start to realize that the team is moving forward without them.
You can develop a mentality with your team that injuries are going to happen, and the trainer is the one who takes care of them. But the team has to continue to get better. No one who is tough is going to want to spend any time with the trainer while practice is taking place. If you get past the injuries quickly, your team will too.
Reward It
If you say you want a tough team, then you have to reward toughness. Celebrate the tough plays as much as possible. Stop practice and make sure they know how important it is to you. Show it on film and praise it.
If toughness matters, those tough kids need to play. Don't threaten to play the tough kids if your starters don't pick it up. Don't underestimate the value of having a tough kid who's not as talented in your line up. If you really value toughness, the best way to show it to your team is to reward it. The test of how you value toughness is how much playing time you will give to it.
Model It
Whether it's work ethic, consistency, showing up early, a great effort every day - however you define toughness, they need to see it from you. Make sure you model the behavior. If staying after practice and getting work in even when you are tired is a sign of toughness for you, then you should be there with them. If giving a consistent effort every day is a tough behavior, you have to make sure you give that effort. You might not be able to dive on the floor for loose balls (please, don't try it), but your team will definitely see whether you are tough or not, based on your standards. If you aren't tough your team won't be either.
Happy
"The happiest people I know are those that really care about others and service to others. Most grumpy people I know are generally selfish types and upset about something that’s not going right for them. You want to be happy? Genuinely care about your family, friends and teammates are doing and how you can help them." - Stan Van Gundy
Escalation of Commitment
We often get so committed to a certain way of doing things that we can see an alternate path to success. We are sure we are right, and the answer is just to commit more, to work harder. We do this often as coaches, just "keep grinding" as a solution to our lack of success.
This opened my eyes as a trap we fall into as coaches a lot. From Adam Grant's book, Think Again.
When we dedicate ourselves to a plan and it isn't going as we hoped, our first instinct isn't usually to rethink it. Instead, we tend to double down and sink more resources in the plan. This pattern is called escalation of commitment. Evidence shows that entrepreneurs persist with failing strategies when they should pivot, NBA general managers and coaches keep investing in new contracts and more playing time for draft busts, and politicians continue sending soldiers to wars that didn't need to be fought in the first place. Sunk costs are a factor, but the most important causes appear to be psychological rather than economic. Escalation of commitment happens because we're rationalizing creatures, constantly searching for self-justifications for our prior beliefs as a way to soothe egos, shield our images, and validate our past decisions.
Escalation of commitment is a major factor in preventable failures. Ironically, it can be filed by one of the most celebrated engines of success: grit. Grit is the combination of passion and perseverance, and research shows that it can play an important role in motivating us to accomplish long-term goals. When it comes to rethinking, though, grit may have a dark side. Experiments show that gritty people are more likely to overplay their hands in roulette and more willing to stay the course in tasks at which they're failing and success is impossible. Researchers have even suggested that gritty mountaineers are more likely to die on expeditions, because they're determined to do whatever it takes to reach the summit. There's a fine line between heroic persistence and foolish stubbornness. Sometimes the best kind of grit is gritting our teeth and turning around.
My First Team
Every team you coach will teach you a great deal, as long as you are open to improvement. Perhaps no team will teach you more than the first one you lead. Looking back on my first year as a head coach, at Rhode Island College in 2005, these are the key lessons I learned.
They won't really play for you until they trust you. Be clear, concise and demanding. But make sure you are straight up with them - always.
They'll trust you when you trust them. It's a two-way street. If they see you believe in them, they'll believe in you.
Think long-term over short-term. This will be hard, but crucial.
Talent matters. Having some success as you are trying to figure it out is important. It's so much harder to create anything through losing.
Change is hard, but necessary. Things will be different with a new leader. Change is happening, and tangible change they can see has a big impact.
Avoid the urge to fit in and be liked. Even the best kids will find the easy way out, and you may not notice it.
Inconsistency hammers your credibility. Make all the mistakes you want. Own up to them. But don't ever say one thing and do another.
It's okay if you don't know. Admit it and show some vulnerability. It will create safety within your team, where they won't be afraid to make a mistake.
What you say off the floor matters more. It matters a lot more than what you say in the gym. Really get to know them.
Someone may have to go. You might have to remove a player that you like, who can really help you, for the long-term culture of the organization.
Talking about last year is counterproductive. It only creates resentment. Leave last year alone.
Define your defensive system. No matter how you want to play. The most important basketball decision I made.
Put your culture first - always. As hard as it may be, if you are only thinking about winning the game tomorrow, you are going to lose that game more often than not. Shortcuts to victory are not sustainable.
Talk to them in behaviors. Take all of your values, principles and buzzwords and figure outwit they look like on the basketball court. Then get them to do that.
The game honors toughness. A core value that travels with you always. Smart and tough wins.
Don't put them in a box. Resist the urge to define who they are. Let them be themselves, and see what they are good at. The more you tell them what to do and who to be, the lower their ceiling.
Create ownership. Ask a lot of questions. You want decision-makers at the point of attack. Create leaders, not followers. Compliant teams have a less potential.
The simpler the better - they will believe in you quicker if it makes sense to them. "A cluttered mind equals slow feet" - Stan Van Gundy. They'll buy-in if they understand it.
Conditioning is a separator. Other teams just aren't doing it that much. A team that knows it is in great shape is really mentally tough.
They don't really care how much you know - ever. What they really care about is if you are making them better. Once the know you are, you've got em.
You can't fool them. Even the dumb ones. Trust me.
Practice your timeouts. The right message delivered properly in 25 or 45 seconds... just isn't that easy. Work on it.
It's theirs, not yours. Don't ever forget it.
"True To His Own Contradictions"
A great quote about Jackie Robinson from Gerald Early, as told by Kostyra Kennedy in his great book "True: The Four Seasons of Jackie Robinson."
"Jackie was true to his own contradictions, which a lot of people are not. We all have contradictions. Very few of us fit into a neat box of ideas and values if we really challenge ourselves. But many people swallow those contradictions as a way to belong to a larger group. Robinson didn't necessarily do that. He wouldn't likely be doing that now."
Greatness - L. David Marquet
Perhaps my favorite 10 minutes on leadership approach anywhere. Worth a check-in every now and then.
Best Practices
I'm a big believer in sharing best practices. But do we do enough to challenge what we are doing, even when it is working? Continuing to get better, despite your success, is a key to sustained elite performance. This will make you think.
From Adam Grant's book, Think Again.
In performance cultures, people often become attached to best practices. The risk is that once we've declared a routine the best, it becomes frozen in time. We preach about its virtues and stop questioning its vices, no longer curious about where its imperfect and where it could improve. Organizational learning should be an ongoing activity, but best practices imply it has reached an endpoint. We might be better off looking for better practices.
At NASA, although teams routinely debriefed after both training simulations and significant operational events, what sometimes stood in the way of exploring better practices was a performance culture that held people accountable for outcomes. Every time they delayed a scheduled launch, they faced widespread public criticism and threats to funding. Each time they celebrated a flight that made it into orbit, they were encouraging their engineers to focus on the fact that the launch resulted in a success rather than on the faulty processes that could jeopardize future launches. That left NASA regarding luck and repeating problematic practices, failing to rethink what qualified as acceptable risk. It wasn't for a lack of ability. After all, these were rocket scientists.
Focusing on results might be good for short-term performance, but it can be an obstacle to long-term learning. Sure enough, social scientists find that when people are held accountable only for whether the outcome was a success or failure, they are more likely to continue with ill-fated courses of action. Exclusively praising and rewarding results is dangerous because it breeds overconfidence in poor strategies incentivizing people to keep doing thins the way they've always done them. It isn't until a high-stakes decision goes horribly wrong that people pause to examine their practices.
We shouldn't have to wait until a space shuttle explodes or an astronaut nearly drowns to determine whether a decision was successful. Along with outcome accountability, we can create process accountability by evaluating how carefully different options are considered as people make decisions. A bad decision process is based on shallow thinking. A good process is grounded in deep thinking and rethinking, enabling people to form and express independent opinions. Research sows that when we have to explain procedures behind our decisions in real time, we think more critically process the possibilities more thoroughly.
Challenging your best practices, despite your success, is a huge key to sustaining elite performance. And as a basketball coach, it's very hard to do - because our results are public and how we are judged. Yet process accountability is huge in creating a championship culture.