Ryan Schmidt on Championship Foundations, “Long DHO’s”, and Calculated Risks {London Lions}

Inside the Episode

“The one thing I always go back to is that it can’t just be words…it’s something that you really have to believe, and I think you have to show by example every single day and really emphasize it. And we’ve had times throughout the season where you’ve got to come back and talk about like ‘this is what we really value as an organization, as a coach.’ It’s more than just style of play…it is who you are as a person, who you are as a competitor, and then from there be able to build out how you want to play.” –Ryan Schmidt on Championship Foundations

The London Lions had a terrific first season in the BBL, taking home the 2023 Championship and creating terrific momentum as a club moving forward. We were fortunate to sit down the week the the Head Coach of the London Lions, Ryan Schmidt, to detail and discuss the foundational pillars of a new team, making the puzzle pieces fit, “long DHOs” and pitches, and we had a blast exploring how players retain information and pick and roll efficiency during the always fun “Start, Sub or Sit!?”

Chapters

0:00 New Team With Coach Schmidt

7:37 Creating a Brand of Basketball

10:18 Team Unity and Personnel Adaptation

13:53 Long DHOs and Creative Practice Strategies

21:39 “Star, Sub, or Sit?!”

22:43 Roller Efficiency Improvement Techniques

28:09 Teaching Retention and Comprehension

35:06 Developing Pillars for Successful Play

39:40 Building a Championship Caliber Culture

44:47 Team Building Through Vulnerability

47:27 Coaching Philosophy and Self-Investment

51:05 Best Investment – Calculated Risks

57:10 Coaching Methodology and Offensive Strategies

Transcript

Ryan Schmidt: 0:00

I ask guys, a lot of time, like you know, talk about a time you know, in your career, you know where you’ve gone through some adversity right And you’ve kind of been a little humbled a little bit, or I might define who you are as a person right now. And that’s where you really see the walls come down And I think you start to see the team sort of developing, because it’s one thing to pay the lip service and talk about, you know the sacrifice, humility, accountability, but, you know, can we all get to know each other, with that being really the foundation and background of what we’re building on?

 Dan: 0:36

Hi, i’m Dan Krikorian and I’m Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slapping Glass, exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today we’re excited to welcome the head coach of the London Lions, fresh off a championship season in the British BBL, Ryan Schmidt. Coach Schmidt is here today to discuss the foundational pillars of a new team, making the puzzle pieces fit long DHOs and pitches, and we talk how players retain information and pick and roll efficiency during the always fun start, sub or sit. Costa Rica, Spain, Italy, Australia, south Africa. We’re excited to announce our newest partnership with the world leader in international sport tours. Beyond Sports Founder and former college and pro basketball coach, Josh Erickson and his team of former athletes have built the go-to company for coaches looking to take their programs abroad. From the travel and accommodations to excursions and service learning opportunities, beyond Sports does it all. For more information and to learn why more than 650 universities have trusted Beyond Sports, visit beyondsportstours.com and tell them. Slapping Glass sent you. And now please enjoy our conversation with coach Ryan Schmidt. Coach, congrats on a great first season and we’re really excited to have you here today.

 Ryan Schmidt: 2:13

I appreciate it, guys. Thank you. A big fan of what you guys do and, to be completely honest, your podcast has helped me quite a bit in my coaching career so far. So appreciate it and it’s going to be. 

Dan: 2:22

We appreciate that. Thank you, coach. Yeah, thank you very much, coach. So a terrific first season for you, as you guys win the BBL your first year with London Lions and we wanted to dive in with the topic of making all the puzzle pieces fit. You take over, it’s a brand new roster, everything’s new, you’re new, players are new And your thoughts on how to make all that fit together. I know that’s a big conversation and we want to basically start with a starting point for you. When you took over and you looked at it, you looked at the roster and who you are as a coach, how you started to think about and figure out where you were going to start with everything. 

Ryan Schmidt: 2:59

Yeah, this is a fun topic. I wish you guys did a podcast on this before I took over. It would have been helpful. It always starts on the defensive end and you know, fortunately and unfortunately you know, i was coaching this past summer in the CBL the Canadian really basketball league. It was a little tough because I didn’t have that time to really prepare, spend time with staff out here in London and you’re doing a lot of Zoom calls and so forth, but you kind of have to hit the ground running a little bit. And again, like you said, it’s a brand new roster and we’re competing in Eurocup which, as you guys both know, and it’s very high level And there’s a lot of teams. You know pretty much majority of the teams outside of us all have some sort of continuity that they’re going into season with and we didn’t. I think you know the starting point was really trying to get to know these guys. You know as players, as people, and kind of really laying out the groundwork and foundation of what we’re trying to do here. You know, getting them to not only just buy in but completely understand the vision of. You know our ownership management, you know us and what we’re trying to do as far as growing the game here in the UK, you know obviously you want to win, but that was kind of starting point is, again, you got to get to know everybody. You’ve got the fun part, and challenging, though, is the coach. You have 15 new players that are all coming in from. You know previous teams and they had other roles, and that is challenging times, because you have a lot of alphas in the room at the same time that you know all are trying to kind of solidify their spot As far as what their role is going to be. I remember asking this question a couple of times back during the season. If you look back on it, like what would you say was probably the most challenging. I just said time. Right, you didn’t have enough time. I felt like it’s because once that first game starts, they don’t stop. They just keep coming and coming and coming, and you know it’s a lot of travel and you’re having injuries that you’re having to deal with Again. It’s just really kind of sticking to what’s the game plan you throw as a coach? I think for me I got kind of alluded to the very beginning of this question was, you know, defensively, let’s form an identity on the defensive end, offensively, as we all know as coaches that’s usually going to be. It takes a little bit more time to catch up because there’s a little bit more chemistry and cohesion that you’re trying to work through. But I think for us can we establish some sort of an identity, having a brand new team. And you know I wanted that to be on the defensive end, we wanted to be a team that was really difficult to play against And so that was kind of the starting point for us. And then again this offensively it was. You know we can probably dive into this a lot more, but just because it’s such a broad topic, but I think on the offensive side of it was really just learning the players. And you know I’m a big believer in trying to kind of raise the level and get guys to play at the highest level they’ve ever played at, and it’s kind of. You know my background on player development. So I was with the Toronto Rappers organization and, you know, in the G League and you’re trying to help guys whether it’s moving from being on the bench to getting the rotation, getting the rotation and being a starting unit, and same thing in the CBL And you know, i know some coaches maybe don’t believe in that. You kind of say this is going to be your role early on. You know, and that’s fine, i just for me it’s, you know, again understanding that we had a lot of guys coming here that had never played in Europe before, and you know British guys or whatever, and so we knew we were going to need them to play you know, the best basketball that they’ve played in order for us to compete. You know, and I think if you look at right now it’s interesting you know an organization that I follow pretty closely It’s probably the best at doing this is in Miami Heat, and you know getting guys to play kind of above their level, and then you’re going to kind of take some licks as you go through this. And you know getting guys that you might think might be able to play, you know, in pick and roll, maybe a month in, you’re understanding like they’re struggling with this a little bit. So how do we adapt and how do we, you know, kind of help them? For us it was unfortunate Our starting point guard, tariq Phillip, went down with a knee injury literally the very first day of practice. So you know, you kind of go in to the start of the season have an idea of okay, this is how I want to play. And then all of a sudden, you know you lose your starting point guard who, which was one of the few guys that had played at Euro Cup level. And so, as a head coach, you’re kind of looking around and they’re like all right, adapt and adjust quickly. 

Dan: 6:54

Before we get to some of the X’s and O stuff and kind of some of the on the court things, briefly touching back on something you mentioned about when you first got the job and you sat down with management and the vision that they have for London building basketball in, you know, one of the best cities in the world where it historically hasn’t had a team and what the vision was and how you tried to think about that. As far as the product you put on the court? 

Ryan Schmidt: 7:19

Great question. That’s something I gave a lot of thought to because you know it was more taking this job and beginning the mission of what you know our ownership triple seven was trying to do out here. Again, you’re trying to grow game here in football country, here in the Premier League, is, you know, the NBA of soccer football. And for me as a coach, this was a fun challenge because when you’re kind of trying to figure out here what kind of style you’re going to play And you know you always want to kind of stay true to who you are as a coach and what you know, you know you don’t want to do anything different. But to me it was really creating a brand of basketball that fans would love to watch. So you know, i thought defensively again, was you know, can we be a disruptive team that really gets after ball pressure, picking people up, kind of swarming the ball and turning teams over and so forth on the offensive side? It was really for me personally it was kind of like how can you take the soccer brand and almost make it basketball right? It was just like the ball movement and, you know, being able to kind of just put you know multiple actions to where you’re getting all the great shots and again having people watch games, where you’re having games in the 25 assists, 30 assists, giving something that just is aesthetically pleasing to watch for people who maybe never been fans of basketball. So that was kind of the fun thing as a team, as an organization, you know. I think the players really enjoyed it as well because they knew it was a style that hopefully was going to produce wins for the same time, like, can you give people to really enjoy what they’re doing and come back for a second game, come back for a fifth game? You know, and we started seeing that towards the end of the year, to the point where, you know, we played our championship game last Sunday, you know, at the O2 arena here in London And there was 18,000 people there to have 18,000 people and it was majority London fans, you know. I remember our first basket was scored and it was, you kind of tell, like wow, these people are here to cheer us on. So that was the basis of kind of when we were building it and trying to figure out, you know, how you want to do it. It was really connecting the style with, you know, getting the fans to enjoy it as well. 

Patrick: 9:12

Coach, in terms of then selling that vision to your players that you brought in and getting their buy-in, because obviously they’re going to be a big piece as well to connecting the vision and bringing the fans in. 

Ryan Schmidt: 9:23

Getting those guys to buy in. It was just a lot of early conversations, you know, i think, really playing the groundwork in a lot of ways of getting them to understand again, like we’re only going to be as good as we can be if we do this together. You look at our roster. You know we did have a couple guys that had NBA experience, but with that NBA experience you know I’m going to say I’m Decker and Costa Cufis. They were never the go-to guys right. Their role was different in the NBA. And if you look at some of the other guys we had, you know they played throughout Europe like none of them have ever been. You know the man. You know I remember having a. Really it was one of those moments you have as a coach where it’s like this can go really good or really bad. And I remember it was before a film session and I asked the guys to stand up and we wrote everyone’s name on the whiteboard And I told them I want you to show us how many Euro Cup teams or Euro League right Offers came into you before coming here, and I think the total was five that we had, and two guys in particular, i think, had four of those. My point was just really, again, it wasn’t to really single guys out and say, you know, you’re not good enough, not within it at all. It was more so getting guys understand that hey, if we’re going to do this, we’re going to have success, like we’ve got to do this together. And then that was early in the season because, again, like I said, there was early in the year where there was your kind of the alpha’s or your cut heads a little bit And the guys aren’t really accepting their roles and maybe wanted a bigger role. That’s part of the process, That’s part of the growth. That’s where we had a disadvantage. Where you don’t have continuity right, you don’t have, you’re not coming into the to the beginning of the season And everyone knows oh, this guy was the lead in the score on the team last year. You know this guy was a starting center on the team last year. It was a clean slate. It made for a really fun training camp. It was competitive. But I think once games got started, like any team, you’re going to have jealousy. There’s going to be egos involved. You know, as a coach, like, how can we figure out? you know, how do you get guys to gel and mesh and understand. You know, ok, this is what we’re going to need out of you. 

Patrick: 11:13

And you know that was kind of the beginning of it, coach maybe moving to the court you mentioned continuity was going to be a challenge or one of your issues to start the season. Did that weigh into your decision to maybe also start on the defensive end? 

Ryan Schmidt: 11:29

The defensive side was just. I think I’d always been personally where I’ve always been the most comfortable as a coach. Just my time with the Raptors and coaching the CBO. You know we had one of the best defenses in that league every year. I think again that’s where, looking at our roster, i felt like we could be a good defensive team. I thought we had really good sides. I liked our length and our versatility. But to me that was where I saw right away we can be really good here. We always want guys to be able to see it and feel success And I think that’s where we saw it early, even in the preseason. You know our defensive system that we implemented. It was a little new for some of them, right, but I think once they started seeing the success of it, buying comes a little quicker, whereas on the offensive end that I just kind of knew was going to take time. And I said this earlier, i didn’t want to pigeonhole guys into certain roles because, to be honest with you, i didn’t know everybody’s strengths and weaknesses. You can dive into the film and you can watch certain things, but I guess a great example of that was Thomas Love Zubicic we had here at Zubicall. He’s just a seven foot four or five who would really been more of a pick and pop guy his entire career. We get into training camp. I remember playing in a preseason tournament out in France And I really like this guy can handle the ball. He’s a heck of a passer. Now, how do we utilize that skill set towards? if I kind of just went into it at the beginning of the year saying you know, hey, this guy, we just want him to set screens, pop and shoot or maybe play second side action, we got to the point where I mean, i had him handling you know four or five pick and roll and you know doing some pretty unique things. I thought And then he just again there was. On the flip side of that too, there was some other guys that maybe you felt like you didn’t get the best out of. It’s tough, i think, offensively. That’s where, systematically, how do we want to play? And beginning of the year it was more so a lot of pick and rolls. We got to, just you know, november and I was like we’re not effective, running a lot of pick and rolls. How do we adjust that? Maybe we get into more DHOs or cutting action to where we can like, try to create some strength, And that’s just where, again, as a coach, you always have to be able to adapt you know, adjust you know to your personnel. And once we got a few months in, we started doing more of that. 

Patrick: 13:33

Coach on the offensive end, what environments did you think about building in the practice to allow you to learn from your players As a coach. 

Ryan Schmidt: 13:40

you’re trying again from a practice standpoint. how do you build it? Beginning of practice every day? we’re fortunate, we’re our coaching staff. We’ve got guys that are able to get out on the court and really work with guys and sweat with them. So we do a lot of stuff. we do a lot of breakdown, whether it’s two on two, three on three, even up to four on four. we’re just putting them into different actions where they’re just having to make reads, and for me it’s not uncommon. I always believed it because instead of just playing five on five, live all the time or a lot, can you create an environment where you’re maybe putting guys in a 15-minute segment and one guy have 10 reps, where he’s handling a pick and roll, has got to make decisions and reads, whereas you’re playing in a five on five, you could scrimmage for maybe 20 minutes and you’re starting to guard, might handle in a pick and roll, what two, three times? So I think, just again, doing a lot more breakdown, build out type things where you’re working on those actions, and that’s where for me it was. you kind of see some things that guys are just doing naturally, and I kind of alluded to earlier where I realized that we might be a better team when we were working, like getting into those long DHOs, right, maybe pick and pop somebody and then we cut a guy from the slot and then get into that long DHO on the backside where we’re not having to create a pick and roll and handle a lot of pressure, and maybe it’s an easier way for us to kind of put pressure on them big. So just in those segments in practice and try to be creative in that regard. that was really helpful for us, especially early in the season. 

Dan: 15:06

Coach, you mentioned your preference You like long DHOs and I think I’d like to circle back to that for a quick second and just what it is to you and then why you felt it was so effective for this group.

 Ryan Schmidt: 15:17

For me the long DHO is just more so playing on the backside. So maybe if you get into an early step up right on one of the outer thirds and hop the guy back to the top of the key depending on if there’s two guys on the weak side or just one really just getting that DHO with the guy in the opposite corner. And for me what I really liked about it was it puts the big defensively in multiple actions. We’re especially see a lot of times over here in Europe though 5s, even 4s, if they’re involved with that early pick and roll, pretty aggressive. You’re not seeing a lot of bigs just playing in a drop, especially in that initial action. It’s really difficult to be really aggressive in that first pick and roll have to recover on the pop and then now have to guard that second side DHO, which you really can’t be ultra aggressive in that unless you’re going to switch right Where you’re not going to really hedge on a DHO. And I just thought also for us offensively it helped some of our guards and wings creating advantage a little easier than just maybe just having to initiate a pick and roll on their own. We didn’t have that was the thing outside. We said, we lost our starting point guard on day one. and then Sam Decker was obviously a very high volume guy for us, but we our other wings and guards weren’t really used to handling the ball quite a bit, but they were good at being able to kind of play downhill. I think there was a lot of variables that went into that and it was just something for us that we started having some success with. 

Dan: 16:35

And Pat knows this about me We started talking about DHOs and I get pretty excited, but so it’s no surprise I circle back to it. But just a quick, maybe tactical teaching point on those long DHOs and the synergy between the big going into the DHO, the guards setting them up out of the corner and, i guess, angles, i mean trying to, you know, force it over. Is it a pitch? Is it a handoff? A little bit of how you teach that. 

Ryan Schmidt: 17:01

I’m the same way as you. I like this topic. I even kind of catch myself in practices like, all right, take a step back, because just on this topic alone, right, you can. Is it just going to be an actual dribble handoff where they’re handing the ball off to one another, or do you want them to get into a pitch? And then we even started doing towards the end of the year where it was because we had to play small due to injury and you know we didn’t have Costa to finish out the season. So we ended up like we’re, instead of it being a pitch, it was more of like kind of a pass and really just like a hard cut and try to attack off his back. I think all three of those are interesting to dive into and work on. It was a lot more dribble handoffs or pitches, right, if it depended on, like, how aggressive the defense was. Obviously, the more aggressive the defense was, we try to want to get into more of a pitch because obviously, as you guys know, you don’t want them to try to blow it up or get a deflection. However, sometimes that gets a little risky. The timing that you have to have with guys is really, really important for our backup center, josh Sharma, who sees seven feet, really athletic, and, you know, one of the best lob threats that I’ve had the privilege of coaching, you know. So for us it was always the for him. How do we create an advantage and try to get the defending guard to go over the top so we can create a potential lob, especially on, you know, those long DHOs? we’re going to try to really create an empty side pick and roll. And then also, then we had our seven foot pick and pop four or five. You know we it became really anything You can be a DHO because if they go under you get into a re-screen. Now he’s popping back to the slot and then he was pretty good with that stuff. So a lot of it was more personnel, you know, driven, and that was the fun part with us We had, well, it was Costa Zuba or Josh Sharma, like all three of those guys are different, and so it kind of became, you know what is their preference. You know one of them liked a short roll. One of them, like I said, was a lead lob threat and other one was a legitimate pick and pop threat, and so you just try to kind of find a balance. I found it was more difficult for the guards because you have to really identify quickly who you are in the action with And I think, just being able to kind of identify that and be able to make that quick read, i thought they did a pretty good job with it. 

Dan: 18:59

Zooming back out into our conversation about this first season, making all this stuff fit together. You talked in the beginning about meeting with the owners and the whatnot of the group and the vision, giving that vision to the players. For you, looking back now on the season, what did you learn, i guess, about yourself as a head coach and the type of messaging and how you present messages that you have to have all the time to consistently stay on point and on brand as you move through this really long season? 

Ryan Schmidt: 19:27

For myself personally, it was everything you study and you read and you listen to your guys’ podcast with all these great coaches you’ve had on. You know you can prepare for all of it, but I think at the end of the day you have to stay true to who you are and you’ve got to be authentic. And that’s why this was such a fun opportunity for me as a coach, because I really, truly believed in what our ownership and management was trying to do here. And she’s kind of interesting and ironic looking back on it. Yeah, i remember when I was talking to people and I left the Toronto Raptors organization to take this opportunity, a lot of people thought it was a dumb move and it was risky for leaving, but I truly believed in it and what they were doing. I thought it was a fun opportunity to kind of take on the challenge. So to that point, as we went through the year, the messaging was consistent because you know, deep down, i really believed in what we were doing. It wasn’t like in November I’m sitting here talking about it and then we get to February and the message is completely different. But I do. I think you have to find unique ways to keep hammering home the message. But also keep guys, you know bought in And you know this was the first time I’ve ever been, you know, part of a almost a 10 month season. Our G League season is about for you. We’re getting 50 games squeezed into. You know, five months. You know CBOs, three months. So there was a couple of times. You know you kind of. You’re sitting at home and it’s dart and gloomy day in February. What’s next? I’m being honest, i’m not just saying this because I’m on your show, but you guys, as a resource, you know some other things. Whether you’re reading or you’re watching other coaches do interviews, you know there’s always something you’re going to be able to relate to other coaches and what they’ve gone through. And you know, try to take bullet points from here and there that might be able to help your team during that time. 

Dan: 20:59

A quick thank you to our newest partner here at Slapping Glass, one of the best tech companies in the world of sports, huddle. As many of you know, huddle extends an array of useful products to coaches, from their auto-tracking camera, huddle Focus, live streaming tool, huddle TV, wearable athlete performance tracker, wemu and their newest offering, huddle Instat, an all-in-one data powerhouse platform that combines advanced tagging with a global film library. For more information on all that’s offered with Huddle Instat, visit Huddlecom slash Slapping Glass today. Thanks to Huddle for the support. And now back to our conversation. Coach, thanks for going through all that stuff. This has been great so far. We want to shift now to a conversation in a segment we call Start, sub or Sit, and so kind of a lightning round situation for you. Wes You question, give you three options Start One, sub One, sit One, and then we’ll go from there. So you have not heard any of these. So these are right off the cuff for you. Are you ready? We can dive in on this first one. I love this part, so I’m excited to see what you got. All right, that’s good. So, coach, i know we mentioned a little bit about you actually went away from some of the pick and roll and the roller stuff and preferring to pop and all that. And this question is actually going to be about going through some of your analytics before we got on the show today. One of the things you were really efficient in one of the best teams efficiency-wise were actually passing it and throwing it to your roller. When you did actually roll in a pick and roll, you guys were one of the best at doing that, even though it wasn’t something you used all the time. So I’m going to ask you to start Sub, sit what goes into pick and roll efficiency on the roller for you when you think about how to make that an efficient action. So your start here would be you think is the most important part of it. So start, sub or Sit. Option one is the area on the floor where that pick and roll is going to take place. Option two is the off-ball cutting around that pick and roll to move or lift tags to help that roller potentially be open. Option three is just the screening ability or IQ of that five or four that’s going to screen and roll, forcing it over, slipping out whatever it is that they do well to help get themselves open. So start, sub or Sit those three when it comes to the roller efficiency. 

Ryan Schmidt: 23:14

This is a fun one. Yeah, i think for me I would start the cutting, i think being able to create the opportunity to open up the floor a little bit. I think the sub would have to be probably location on the floor I think would be the next one, and then the Sit would be. What did you say? there was a screening. 

Dan: 23:31

Yeah, the ability of the screener, the IQ or how they screen, yeah well, let’s sit that one. Coach, let’s start with your start and how you think about. We’ve talked a little bit about some offensive principles in that first part of our conversation, but when it comes to potentially opening up a roll and what’s going on cutting-wise with your other three players, how do you think about that? 

Ryan Schmidt: 23:52

This was something that we really utilized quite a bit, and I think some of it has to do with how high level you’re going to be able to make those reads and passes. And then also too, as you guys know, in Europe it’s fun because the defensive rules they make it difficult to really open the floor up a lot and really being able to pack the pain and zone up a lot, if you will. So for us it was honestly we talked about it earlier We had a guy who was really good at a lob threat And early in the season he was making a highlight film for himself And as we got to the second half of the season that was a game plan Our teams were really trying to take that away. So, again, the cutting and whether it’s we’re attacking the heavy side and teams really playing with like a heavy lift, we would do a lot of things where you saw with Obradovich’s Fenerbahce teams back there where they would kind of cut the guy in the corner and drift down, and I think that really would open up more so for the playmaker because, again, i think, ability to make that pass, if you can open the floor up a little bit, it just creates a little bit more vision and freedom for the guard. But then also too, it put a lot of pressure on the big plane and maybe a drop where he doesn’t really have the guards, the wings to kind of help on and plug the floor a little bit. So again, like that cutting action was really good. And then another one that I liked too was and we talked about earlier with our favorite DHO topic, but it was playing on that backside and kind of getting those long DHOs where maybe that initial action is not going to be because the defense can really load up and take that away. But if we could maybe pop the guy back and play second side, we would can slot, cut that guy out And then it really puts pressure on the guard defender trying to get through the DHO. And then again those empty side pick and roll actions were something that we had a lot of success with too, because you’re kind of eliminating the help defender, which I think to me kind of goes into the next part where we start like the location of the floor. But yeah, i think the cutting for me was I thought it really helped our guards mainly just being able to make the play when we were able to cut and just shift the defense a little bit instead of really letting the defense load up to take that action away. 

Dan: 25:50

I’ll stick with the cutting for a second. I thought it was kind of interesting. you mentioned, like what types of cuts were more helpful for the ball handler as a playmaker, the cutting change at all, or do you think when it was maybe not your primary ball handler in an action and whether you would cut any differently? or was it more just systematic rules in whatever the pick and roll was? 

Ryan Schmidt: 26:09

I mean it’s definitely more systematic because obviously just with more drop coverage base right, like if we have teams are playing in that drop coverage we really just try to kind of open things up a little bit more. I did say it was a little bit kind of, i think, helped with the decision making for the guards Early on. They struggle with it though, because it can be it’s almost like too many reads. You’ve got to make your own read as a guard. Coming off of that You’ve got your big roll into the rim and also now you’ve got to cut in the corner and then drift in which option is the right read. But I think, as the more again kind of going back to what we spoke earlier, like in the practice early portion of our practice segments, just repping that stuff out and just getting guys comfortable with understanding the timing of it, what the read is going to be, when the read is going to be there. Then again, like then you see on the other side of it where if maybe a team’s really aggressive, that’s where we would get more so into like that backside action, like I said, maybe pop the big back and then play those long DHOs, the pitch actions, where we would get even kind of get off the actual pick and roll with like the hitting the roller. But that slot cut really opened things up for us too, where, maybe because the team weren’t able to recover on that pop, they’d either full rotate or heavy stunt on that weak side and then that slot cut. Maybe we can just create something there and get it easy paint touch off of that. 

Patrick: 27:21

My follow-up has to do with the big, your screener, and, as you mentioned, you had a real good lob threat, a guy that could really get on the rim. What were you working with in terms of how you wanted him to maybe force overs or screen in proper angles so that he could get to the rim and be a threat? 

Ryan Schmidt: 27:36

Early in the year he struggled a little bit because he was constantly getting called for moving screens, both domestically and even in Eurocup. So it was more so of just really working with him and teaching and watching the film, of trying to attack the defender, especially those like the DHOs or pitches, and then also to just the angle of the screen where sometimes it was personnel driven with what defense was to do. But then there were some teams that just like they’d go under a lot. So we really tried to kind of set that angle, kind of 45 degree angle, as you approach the defender, to try to really force him to have to go over. Kind of our message in him was look, if the guard goes over, we win, especially with him. He put so much pressure on the rim and they’re always going to, whether it’s a high tag, a low tag, sometimes both. Maybe you don’t get the ball, but we’ve got some guys that are good shooters or good at attacking closeouts on the backside And we create those. Put the defense in the long rotations, long closeouts, that’s all a little marginal things with just your angle of your screen And that was it. Just we always talking about kind of 45 degrees and get him to go over the top, and then from there we’ll just make reads and play The. 

Patrick: 28:41

sticking the screen versus slipping the screen or knowing when to get out. What was the discussions like there? or helping him with that, he was really good at slipping out and getting out early. 

Ryan Schmidt: 28:50

And then it was funny too because then he had different guards in particular who one wanted him to get out, get out, slip out, and then there’s another one that pulled the screen, pulled the screen. So he had to kind of learn that balance. And just who was he on the floor with? What does this guard want, and so forth. So it wasn’t so much always with what with, for him it was like who is he involved in that action with? And one of our guards loved when he would just slip out because he was pretty quick and strong. You can kind of get in the paint and create an advantage. And then he knew he’d have him on the roll. And there was the other one who he was always telling him like hold the screen, you know, don’t move, which he didn’t love it because it was pretty delayed how he could get out, because his worry was if I set and I get out still pretty quick He was about 50% of the time there was a moving screen for him. 

Patrick: 29:35

So he didn’t love that one too much In terms of why that guard wanted him to hold it. you mentioned kind of the strength of the other guard who wanted to slip a guard that wants him to hold the screen. What is he looking to get to or play to? 

Ryan Schmidt: 29:46

I think for him it was more like he was really good at just defending the guard like on his hip and being able to hold him off. He kind of felt like, if I can get the defender on my hip or on my back you know, that’s where he knew he had an advantage And he was all strong enough to be able to hold him off when I let the defender kind of get back in front, so that was more so his ability just to force him to go over but set it And then again, like I can get him on my back He’s a veteran, you know Jordan Taylor, who’s played in Europe for a really long time That was just like where he was just really comfortable and being able to make those reads and decisions and again create his advantage where, if he slipped out a lot of times he just kind of felt like he was playing one-on-one right with that defender, because maybe that guard can get back in front really quick or maybe just kind of on his hip but not really quite the advantage he wanted. So for him it was more so get that guard on my hip or my back And then you know from there that he felt that his advantage, and our advantage was more so in favor of him. 

Patrick: 30:37

Coach, our next start subset for you, so your start would be the hardest thing to teach your players. Start subverset teaching them comprehension, teaching them retention or teaching them the application in terms of a habit, a skill, a concept. 

Ryan Schmidt: 30:52

Obviously all are really important. I would say start comprehension, I would sub the retention and set the application. 

Patrick: 31:00

I’d like to start with your sub and how you think about teaching retention or getting your players to actually remember stuff. 

Ryan Schmidt: 31:07

This is something that I’ve spent a lot of time, especially the last year in the summer. One of my assistant coaches I worked with in the CBL and actually she’s with the Detroit Pistons and she’s here at Brittany Donaldson. She spent a lot of time researching this. Just, you know, again like the teaching element of coaching, and how do you, you know, get players to retain information? I think too many times as coaches right, we especially getting a season and there’s just so many games and you’re focused, scout, reporting this and that, and you know, sometimes we forget. You know we’re just throwing a bunch of information, you know, at these players, but how do we get them to retain it? So sometimes we would do something where maybe you would introduce something you know. Maybe here’s a walkthrough type of you know session where, whether it’s a new play, whether it’s a new coverage, whatever you’re doing, literally just introduce it, and then we’d go in, they guys would do their normal warm-up, dynamic warm-up, we’d do our normal pick and roll breakdown to start, and then we’d come back to it. And, you know, maybe we’ll just do a live segment for five minutes, but don’t even teach it. Right, you introduced it earlier, you kind of left it alone. Now let’s just play, but don’t stop it every time. It’s brand new, and then again can we come back to it, maybe a little bit later. And now you kind of maybe stop every now and then and teaching correct Again. Just allow them to try to retain on it. I think, instead of spending 20 minutes on you know where, you’re just doing something the entire time and you’re stopping and you’re teaching, you’re stopping, you’re teaching, you’re stopping, and it’s just kind of worth repetitive. Give it to them a little bit more like quick doses and then forget about it, come back to it, i think, to me what I found and I give her a lot of credit for this, because it was something that she really kind of put on my radar I found right away that you could just tell for us it worked. Like the retention I felt was a lot higher than it had been if you were just to do something in just like a little block segment you know of. Well, there’s 15 minutes, 10 minutes, whatever that is left, it alone came back to the next day, wasn’t retained as much as when you kind of doing these little like smaller segments. Allow them to just play and figure out on their own after you’ve really introduced it, taught it a little bit. That’s a fun one for me, something I’ve really kept in the toolbox a little bit. 

Patrick: 33:07

Could a follow-up on when you just allowed them to play with it and little teaching, but after you kind of introduced it. What did you find out about that that made you believe that this was very successful in helping them retain it? 

Ryan Schmidt: 33:19

I think that it was like those little quick hits. I don’t know what it is with us as coaches. You feel like you, there’s always more to say, more to teach And to me it was based on listening to her and the research that she put into this. I’ve always been interested in trying to do things a little bit differently and kind of go out on a limb a little bit. If it’s going to help, why not try it? And so I think once I did it like the first thing we did I think it was a new zone that I did this last summer And I mean I’m not joking We probably spent maybe three or four minutes like just introducing it, like right, this is, you know, when it goes here, this guy’s bumping here and you’re dropping this side, boom, done, all right as we go warm up, and then we come back to it And it was maybe 30, 40 minutes later in practice And you can see like the retention already right there, right, and then left alone again and then came back the next day, i think it was, and it was sharp And it wasn’t just like one or two of them, it was like the entire team and just kind of in unisons and you know, defensively, as we all love to see as coaches, everyone was moving on a string And so to me I was just smiling. I’m like, wow, this works. 

Dan: 34:22

This is kind of tying in our conversation to start this podcast, which was you came into a situation where there’s not continuity of a program, all new guys, everything’s new And so some of this stuff for time out, retention wise, like if you have a program where players are coming back and they have this sort of institutional knowledge of what you do. But you didn’t have that. Was it a difficult process? Or what was your process of figuring out how to funnel down what information to actually give your players Because of all the things we’ve talked about, everything is new of how you play offensively, defensively, and them to retain stuff, and some of that is obviously how much you give them to retain, and so how did you and your staff think about how much to give them this year? 

Ryan Schmidt: 35:03

It was tough, I think it wasn’t great at it, I think they don’t even for me. You look back and you always reflect as a coach and man, I could have been better here, We could have done this better, And I think I said at the beginning I wish you guys would have done a podcast on this earlier that I could have listened to this summer, because so many times during the season I had felt like we should have started with this instead of doing it this way or try to rewind. But again you’re in the middle of a season and so just trying to again continue to adapt to just what we need to do. But I think the foundation, or the skeleton, everything was really pillar-based. We had, obviously, when we talk about implementing the culture, we had a standard performance that we talked about as far as how we wanted everything to do, what was the expectations, and then also two parts. That was our style of play and our pillars and what we were going to do. Defensively, We have four for each, four offensive and four defensive, And to me that was just again defensively, no matter if we’re in a zone, if we’re in a man, we’re going to do these four things, And offensively. It’s not so much about the specific play but it’s how we want to play. Those four things to me were like that was kind of the starting point, because you go through the season and your personnel is going to adjust because of injuries, And maybe you sign a player too late in the year, which we did. You’re always going to have to adapt on those things. But I think if you can give the players pillars that we call them that they can really kind of stand on and understand no matter what we’re running on either. These are the things that we really need to stay true to. 

Patrick: 36:26

Could you just, if you mind, sharing your four pillars on offense and defense that you had with your team? Yeah, for sure. So to start, with.

 Ryan Schmidt: 36:33

For us it was press up, which was ball pressure really for us. So just again, as you’re getting into the ball, impacting the ball. The second one was shrinking the floor, so we talked about that a little bit earlier. Third one was shot contests, right, and basically again contesting every single shot. The fourth one was kind of a fun one for us. We call them kills And I know in normal coaching terms kills are three stops in a row. For us we change it, just basically killing the possession. So that was obviously rebounding And for us also it was taking charges. It was 50-50 balls diving on the floor for 50-50 balls, really just anything that killed that possession. So those are the forward defensively And then offensively. For us was spacing, was the number one. So for us it was really getting out and filling the corners early in the possession, playing with tempo. The popular saying is space and pace, but for us it was more tempo. I didn’t really want us to play fast necessarily. It was more creating a tempo in the half court with ball movement, player movement. We’ve talked a lot about so far picking roles and long DHOs and cutting, just again getting the ball moving and popping a little bit. And then the other one was paint touches. So that was the third one. For us. It’s really put emphasis on getting into the paint And then also it was passing. So just again, we wanted to be a team that was high with the sys. So those were those four And for all of these, so there was four for each. We tracked all this during the season individually. We would track it as a team. We would track it early in the season. It’s good because I think it also can hold guys that are more accountable when you’re showing us. So instead of just speaking to something like Hey, we need to shrink the floor, we need to contest shots, like you’re actually showing this to your team, your players. So there’s the accountability factor And then also there’s the buy-in Right. I think by doing that that we would show numbers of team shooting percentage when we were contesting versus when we didn’t, when players see how significant of a change that is. Like Hey, these guys shot 75% from three when we didn’t get a good contest, versus they shot 23% when we were getting a hand on their face and just trying to make a miss. Same thing on the offensive side. We would paint touches for us. This year, the trend that was really alarming and pretty crazy was our 3.0 percentage when the ball hit the paint first, versus not So obviously our huge emphasis on getting into the paint. You know we shot. I have to go back and look. I think on this season we shot 47% as a team from three when the ball hit the paint first, versus when it didn’t I think it was sub 30. We just came down and it was maybe a quick three year, maybe one or two passes, perimeter based possession, as I referred to it, as We didn’t shoot the ball really well. Then, as a coach, you start to notice the trends and it was really just those paint touch threes created rhythm for us. Right, like guys were just, you know, being able to, you know, get into the paint, kick it, swing it, maybe one more, and then they’re stepping into it with rhythm and confidence. So you get to see the players see this and at first they’re looking at it like there’s a lot of numbers up here. You start showing it with the film and I would pull clips and theme it out, right, our paint touch clips, and they would show. You know, in some games we paint touch threes. We shot 70% from three. That game. You just put that in the text and so they just get more and more used to it. Now and then you just start to form your identity and then how you’re trying to play, you know throughout that way. 

Dan: 39:40

We’ve been talking a little bit about the four pillars that have led to a philosophy or a style play. Is there anything else that you think about that builds either, on top of these things more, i guess, culturally, what you think about as it relates to, you know, building up the program?

 Ryan Schmidt: 39:55

Yeah, definitely. I mean for us as an organization. you know me as a coach something I’ve kind of built out over the years is, you know, i call it our championship caliber culture, and it really starts with who you are as people, right, who you are as a competitor Like. it’s kind of like the foundational piece of that, you know. so there’s some characteristics that you know we really put an emphasis on. you know that’s those four, but on the bottom, i guess you’d say the true foundation, you know humility, accountability, sacrifice and authenticity. And I think too, when you get into this stuff, obviously, as all of us coaches know, when it comes to culture, you want to be careful with, you know, just putting words and signs on wall. You really kind of have to speak to who you are as a coach, what you believe in, what you want your team to look like. And again, a lot of our conversation that we’ve had was just building a brand new team and kind of went into that. So you know, through the recruiting process that we you know myself and Brett Berman did was we last summer it was really looking for high character guys. And you know again, because you’re bringing in all these people, number one thing is you want to have good people, party of organization, party of program. The next piece of that was all right, who are they as competitors? So it’s kind of broken into three tiers. I guess you’d say And it was you know character, right, and then you’re who you are as a competitor. And then the next one was called growth mindset, which is really touches on the player development piece of our program. And again, a lot of that was I think I alluded to earlier with you know. You see, like the Miami Heat and what they’re doing in the NBA playoffs and having all these undrafted guys and playing at the highest level they’ve ever played at. And that was kind of a little bit of our approach because we knew, with a lot of our roster we didn’t have a lot of the guys that just had played in Eurocup. So we knew, okay, everybody, some of our British players and some of these other guys were bringing in you know, how do we get them to play at a level higher than they’ve ever played before? And I think a lot of that is just putting an emphasis on, you know, for us as a coaching staff, but also asking the players to come in and with that growth mindset and trying to get better every single day. And, as you guys know, as coaches like you get into December, january, in the middle of season, you know it’s tough to kind of still come in and have that approach of like I’m trying to get better today. So that was a little bit of you know, our holter piece with the pillars and then from there kind of gets into the defensive stuff And we obviously all have, you know, four offensive ones as well. But I think that the biggest thing is just kind of having that overall vision like what do you want your team to look like? And then also, the one thing I always go back to is it can’t just be words. I think it’s something that you really have to believe, and I think you have to show by example every single day and also really emphasize it. And we’ve had times throughout the season you know where you got to come back and talk about like this is what we really value as an organization, as a coach. But yeah, that kind of touches on a little bit more of the overall pillars. It’s more than just style of play And kind of we build on it, but like the foundation piece of it is again more of the who you are as a person, who you are as a competitor, and then from there be able to build out you know how you want to play. 

Patrick: 42:43

Coach, during the recruitment phase, when you’re having conversations with prospective players, like you said in August preseason, it’s easy to give a lip service and say, yeah, you can hold me accountable, i’m going to sacrifice. But, like I said, now you’re November, there’s a losing streak And guys kind of show their true colors. So when you’re having these recruiting conversations, what are you thinking about? to try to uncover the characteristics of these guys that you can maybe hope, judge if this guy’s the right fit or you know how he’ll react to adverse times. 

Ryan Schmidt: 43:12

This is one of my favorite questions actually. I think to me it’s always try to touch on you know, you kind of get in. You know the nuts and bolts of you know who they are, their background And as a coach you want to. You’re going to talk to them and the agent about your style, play, what you believe in. But I think once you kind of get through those, you know the surface level stuff. For me I really want to get to know them And you know, again, that’s where I say, like these pillars, and you know what you believe in as a culture, i think you really have to truly live it and believe it. So again, you know we talk about the humility piece, right, or sacrifice, and I ask guys a lot of time, like you know, talk about a time you know in your career you know where you’ve gone through some adversity, right, And you’ve kind of been humbled a little bit or I might define who you are as a person right now And you can kind of see. You know like sometimes it catches guys off guard a little bit, but then also other times you again you kind of get to see who they are as people. And also you know we do this during the season, kind of giving away all my secrets here, but we actually do what I call player talks, where we actually have the players get up and they give a PowerPoint presentation on themselves And we touch on a lot of these pillars. And one of the things I asked them to do is again talk about a moment of adversity that you’ve gone through, whether it’s you know your personal life, professional life, obviously both you know. That kind of defines who you are and where you’re at today, and that’s where you really see the walls come down And I think you start to see the team sort of developing, because it’s one thing to kind of go into battle or into a game with a teammate that you know who is a basketball player, but when you also know that and I’ve had, i’ve done this for four years now and you hear pretty crazy stuff, right Like there’s been some really emotional ones you know where guys talk about. You know maybe losing. You know a loved one or best friend, or obviously you hear a lot about. You know injuries like really serious. You know whether it’s ACLs, achilles, and how guys battle back from that and maybe how that affected them they lost a job because of it And you know. So again, when you see that, like again, like all said, now they get to know each other kind of on a little bit of a deeper level. But again, that’s kind of what I’ve alluded to with, it’s one thing to pay the lip service and talk about, you know, the sacrifice, humility, accountability, but, you know, can we all get to know each other, with that being really the foundation and background of what we’re building on? 

Dan: 45:20

Just to follow up on that, because I think that’s a really cool thing that you do, and I was going to ask about how you make sure the conversations afterward, or you as a staff, foster the environment so that, like that, sharing takes place, because, as you mentioned, those can be really potentially tough things to share And you know public speaking is like the number one fear of people, basically, especially in front of your peers. So how you and the staff have made it so that they feel comfortable if they share something, and then there are conversations that take place beyond what they say like to use a group, keep discussing, or you know how do you run the whole thing. 

Ryan Schmidt: 45:55

To be honest, when I started it the first time I did it it was, you know, you’re kind of taking a shot at the dark, but I wanted to do something. You know, from a team building standpoint, that was a little different. You know, i think the first year, to be honest, when I did it was it was right during COVID. I was coaching in the CBL and this was in late July, early August, and they were able to do a bubble right outside of Toronto And so you couldn’t really go out and do a bunch of things. So I was again trying to get creative and how do we get these guys to come together? And it was just kind of an idea that you know brainstormed about a little bit. So that first year was obviously the toughest one. But then from there, the second year and even third, you have returning players that come back And so I always had would have them start, so like the first few would be guys who have been part of the team the year prior, so they kind of understand what it looks like And they they’ll be vulnerable from the jump And so it kind of, i think, opens the gate a little bit to the new players and it’s saying like, Oh, wow, it’s not just getting up here and talk about my family, where I’ve played, you know it’s. You know you can really be honest and kind of get into who you are as a person. So you know that was really important. And then you know again, in London, you know, this year I did have one player that played for me in the past and I was Aaron Best, and so he went first. I would kind of set the tone a little bit. From there you can kind of see, you know, guys, i think, get a little bit more comfortable. And then the other one too, I’ll be honest, i do one myself, again talking a lot about the same thing. So I think you just start to build that bond and relationship with the players And I think when they see, understand your background, each other’s backgrounds, but at the same time, under that kind of last piece we touch on is, you know, what are they looking for in this season, what are their goals, that they’re trying to get out of season? A lot of people obviously talk about winning right, and so I hold on to that And maybe, if you have to revisit, you know whether it’s an individual conversation or maybe it’s before or after a game. You know you kind of go back, you touch on but hold on a second. Like you know, back in the preseason every single one of you got up here and talked about winning the championship is the most important thing. So when you hear it from them it’s kind of like you know you told on yourself a little bit And so sometimes you do have to kind of pull that card out. But it is pretty cool because I think to everyone’s core like everyone wants to win and everyone wants to talk about it. But again there’s going to come a time of the season, or multiple times in the season, where it’s not about winning right. The frustration kicks in because I’m not playing as much or I’m not getting the shots I want. But three, four months ago you told me winning was all that mattered. So it kind of goes hand in hand a little bit. But it’s kind of a fun team building exercise that I’ve done over the years And you know, like I said, it seems to work pretty well. 

Dan: 48:20

If I could ask just one last question on all this, I just think it’s really interesting on how you got to these pillars, to these foundational values that you hold, And if there was any buddy in your past that you, you know, worked on these with or studied or read about. I mean, how did you get to these things personally? 

Ryan Schmidt: 48:39

Yeah, I think all of the above you know. I think as a coach you know when you’re an assistant you always want to be a head coach. You know, maybe not everybody, but I think for me I can honestly say like I’ve been trying to prepare to be a head coach my entire career And I think a lot that goes into it is not just the X’s and O’s, it’s team building right, it’s its leadership. So it’s a lot of books that you read, it’s studying other coaches, other organizations, for all sports. I’ve taken a little bit of everything. I’m a huge Buffalo Bills fan in the NFL And I remember I’ve been able to spend time with them in training camp, you know, on two different occasions. You know, and that’s the championship caliber that came from them. Like they talk about that a lot. But then like the pillar component of it, when I was in Toronto, nick Nurse was really big on pillars. So I was again, how do I form something that visually looks like it does? but then I wanted it to all kind of tie in together. I’ve seen a lot of things before where, again, some people it’s just, you know, maybe it’s style of play And that’s what we had in Toronto, like Nick was really big on, like the style of defensive and offensive pillars, but then I also wanted, okay with that below, like as a foundation, like what’s really important to me And it’s, you know, building through people, right, i think you hear it from other organizations, other coaches. You know, better people make better players, better executives, better coaches, and so really putting the kind of an emphasis on, okay, like in people, what are some qualities that you really cherish and value, when that’s kind of where that piece came from. And then again, like I said, i wanted it all to tie in instead of talking about, you know, okay, this is going to be our style of play, and then you know we want to talk about being good people and all. But again, how does it all tie in? And so it’s a little bit of everything, right, it’s Manifel teams, nba teams, new Zealand All Blacks or another organization I’ve studied that you can take a lot from. And then also, too, just even you know, businesses and Fortune 500 companies and CEOs that you know I’ve listened to talk or read books on. So it’s been fun. It changes every year a little bit. There’s some things that I’ll take out and maybe add, And we’re in the summertime now, so who knows what it looks like come August. 

Dan: 50:34

Coach, great stuff. You’re off the start subbersit hot seat. Thanks for going through all that with us. I think we touched on most parts of basketball there. So Thank you for going through all that stuff with us, because we got one more question for you to end the show before we do. Again, congratulations on a great season and thank you for your time today. This was really fun for us. 

Ryan Schmidt: 50:55

No, i think, guys, honestly this was a lot of fun. It’s an honor to be on this and hopefully some coaches out there have some valuable stuff They can use, because I’ve definitely used you guys as a huge resource appreciate that. 

Dan: 51:05

Thanks, coach, which our last question that we asked all the guests is What’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach? 

Ryan Schmidt: 51:14

I love this question and I think for me It’s a stock market type. Investment is you have to be willing to gamble on yourself a little bit, and I think that’s something that I’ve done that’s paid off so far. You know, i kind of touched on it earlier in the show when I decided to take this job. It wasn’t a very popular decision, you know, kind of amongst some of my peers is even mentors, but to me it was the project itself, was something I was excited about, you know. And then for me it was just, you know, the opportunity to be a head coach in Europe. It wasn’t a popular decision, but I think to leave that MBA bubble a little bit, i think, is where a lot of people scared, might be a little bit too harsh, but I think it kind of becomes a risk. But I think in order to grow and develop as a coach, that you have to be willing to take those risks. You know, and it’s something I did even with the CBL. You know, at the time I took that head coaching job, it was a league that was going into a second season again wasn’t a very popular decision, but that was my opportunity, my first chance to be a head coach of the professional level, regardless of what it was viewed at. You know how high of a level that was. But I’ll be honest with you guys, if I don’t take that job, there’s no way I’m ready to take this job out here and coaching Euro Cup. And you know I still probably wasn’t ready in a lot of ways, right, just even this last year I learned so much and I’m excited to summer to try and go back and dive into a lot of things And continue to get better. But you know I can honestly say from an investment standpoint, just you know, taking risk and then kind of trusting, and with some investments come a little bit of risk You got to gamble a little bit and hopefully they pay off. 

Dan: 52:43

I just want to say off the bat, coaches can’t dangle the conversation about DHOs in front of me like that. Yeah, my siren song, yes, yeah I. I cannot be held accountable. 

Patrick: 52:55

It was nice, so I got to take a break. I knew I could just kind of sit back. 

Dan: 53:01

All right, i’m out for a couple rounds, yeah, but with coach Smith I mean, obviously a great season for him and I think, just before we get into stuff, maybe a little background on this conversation how we got to it. One of the things as we were discussing with coach Smith beforehand was just, you know, building a program from the ground up, basically, or from year one, and just sort of you know off podcast conversations about his first year. I think he got into, you know, in his best investment question and stuff like it wasn’t an easy decision, yeah, to go and do it and I think that was really interesting, kind of as a career move. And so our bucket for our first theme. You know we went back and forth a lot on like Learning from your players, making the pieces fit, sort of wanting to dive into all of that, because it was a lot for him to do In this first year and he did a well. Obviously they won the BBL, but I think it was an interesting place to kind of dive in and talk about a lot of stuff for him. 

Patrick: 53:55

Definitely. I think what added to us wanting to have this conversation was what he hit on in his vision, or the vision that they’re trying to sell, is The project they’re undertaking in London with that triple seven group and trying to build basketball in London and compete Internationally. So kind of also armed with that knowledge. You know, we knew is they’re very young in this process, so we thought it dead and this has to be a very interesting conversation with a new coach, a new team, a new club, so just a lot of groundwork that need to be laid on top of, you know, building, like you said, continuity and everything on the court. 

Dan: 54:28

So really, glad we had it. Yeah, me too. And obviously when the BBL, you know being in International competition, year old cup, I mean, i think from all standpoints as far as like he mentioned it too on air about how they’re trying to build Basketball in the city and to have a great team in London, only helps international basketball, i know like similar thing, like what they’re trying to do in Paris. You know, these big major cities having a good program That’s building is only gonna help international competition, i know is the thought. So it’s good that they had that success Yeah. 

Patrick: 54:59

So they were performing at a high level on top of building. This made it a really unique, interesting conversation for us and when we were looking forward to. 

Dan: 55:05

Yep, absolutely. 

Patrick: 55:06

So I guess getting into our conversation things that stick out to you first and foremost, I always enjoy when we talk to coaches off air and like where you start, you know, offense defense We’ve heard a lot is like to definitely, you know, teach what you know And he felt the most confident defense and starting there and you know, building the defense first and then getting into the offense, which is, you know, we’re always interested and just like the battle of control versus freedom and learning your players and building Your offense throughout the season and not just being so rigid or stuck in the mud Like he alluded to, when you know they weren’t very efficient in the pick and roll and then we got you know, right in your sweet spot with those DHOs. But yeah, you know, it’s always interesting as a coach, like how do you notice that? I mean, obviously there’s one of them, the stats But then having the ability to actually apply it on the court and you know what do you do in practice to see these things Kind of shine through, to help with you know pivots that you need to make as a coach. 

Dan: 56:02

Yeah. I liked how he mentioned his backstory of just becoming up and feeling comfortable as a defensive coach. And I think that’s always interesting right there, as far as offensive versus defensive minded coaches Or I know everybody’s both but like where you feel more comfortable and how you build your team, your culture, your environment, if you’re more of a defensive coach versus if you’re more of an offensive coach. And obviously, as we saw, he’s a Talented offensive coach as well, as you heard. Yeah, but I think that’s interesting, you know, from a culture building standpoint of you know he mentioned later We’ll get to him some of the pillar stuff as well as how he built. That I thought was really good. I did like some of his conversations just on and maybe this is jumping ahead too much But within making everything fit together, just practices and implementations of things, and you know You kind of just heard from the player development to Working in groups and five on five, and then you heard I think it starts upset, which I don’t want to skip to, but remind me a little bit of Damian Cotter and messy practices at times and not Overcoaching those kinds of things. I kind of took that from that first part and then I’ll just dive in real quick. I loved the long DHO conversation. I know you know that, but particularly because we’ve had a lot of DHO conversations. But what I liked, that I thought was a touch different, was first of all the term long DHO. I wanted to make sure like I kind of understood him correctly. But it’s a little different than just some of the other DHO conversations that we’ve had and I really liked him getting into why that Worked and I think, like you heard him talking about how they piece their offense together and then also how he Understood how players worked with each other. And I think that was also Beyond the long DHO conversation itself. It was hearing the inner workings of his thoughts on building things out was interesting to me. 

Patrick: 57:48

That’s another point I wrote down on reminds you of, you know, a project we did with the pro lane, of just Rethinking how you can take advantage of these 15 minute blocks where it’s just a certain scenario, maybe, but putting guys in different situations, building synergy, building chemistry, but also then, what this first kind of bucket of conversation was, of just being able to learn and watch and kind of see What your players do naturally they do naturally well, so that you can also then apply to your global view of the offense. So I really like hearing just the methodology coaches use and the value they place on maybe these two on two, three on three games and just a 15 minutes and giving them multiple decisions and the value of just placing, you know, the ball in their hands and giving them access and freedom to just play basketball moving to start, sub or sit. 

Dan: 58:35

I’ll let you take it away. I’d like to give you props. You did a quick little tangent not a tangent, but we had discussed a few different options. We agreed on an option before and then you switched it, which was good because I think that it actually led to a really nice Conversation. So that tough to teach with comprehension, retention, application. A good question by you and I guess, your takeaways from that.

 Patrick: 58:57

I mean this way I think we love starts upset. I mean I’ll get to the question I asked, but then that it just leads to just conversations We weren’t prepared for, didn’t know where it was gonna go with getting into his pillars and yeah, and that actually then tied up really nicely to the first original conversation We had. so, yeah, this is why it’s always fun, yep, sometimes the struggle of coming up with three, but yeah, we’re sweating bolas for two minutes before we start trying to figure out how to do it, but figure out this damn third one Yeah. I was curious about retention and, as coach Schmidt alluded to by referencing, he learned it from Brittany Donaldson. I saw a social media post from her I think she had done some clinic or a podcast and he commented on it that he learned a lot from her. So that’s really where the conversation, or the thought, popped into my head. I thought it was a really interesting conversation and wanted to follow up and learn more myself. 

Dan: 59:48

It was great. I mean, honestly, was really cool about that is it ended up flowing into his pillars and getting to hear a little bit about The backbone of how he built things to. And then I think those pillars, if I could tie them together, those things do help in the retention process because everything goes back to these things and funnels back Yeah, it funnels back in. So I’ll just keep it moving to the other one. That question, the pick and roll, the roller efficiency, came out of looking through their analytics this year. They were it just kind of stood out. They were really good with that. I thought it was also interesting because it wasn’t one of their like highest usage rate play types too, yeah, but they were super efficient and and I think it was interesting I didn’t realize this till we were on air with him, but he mentioned how they kind of went away from some types of pick-and-roll stuff and did more pick-and-pop because of their personnel, but they still ended up being really efficient when they did roll and I think we talked off air with him about he really was high on teaching cutting And so I think that was his start there as far as like, if you’re gonna have a roller and be efficient at finding the roller via a Lob, like you kind of followed up with or whatever it is, how important it is to have some kind of backside cutting or rotations or movement. He mentioned a broad of itch and that kind of circle wheel behind action, which is a nice little point in there too, and I’ll just throw one more nugget in there that I really liked. But he just talked about how he thought that the action where they’re cutting from the corner and sliding Simplified some of the reeds for the guard and made it easier for them to attack downhill. I just wrote a note. This would also be for me. Maybe I don’t want to say this is a miss, but just a deeper conversation on the types of cutting actions, whether it’s corner 45 or whatever it is that you’re doing, how that plays into the ball handler and their comfort level with making those reeds. And I won’t go too long here. But sue bird talked about this when we had her on as her preference for who’s cutting and when, and then also when we had jenny boo sec on. At the time she was with the mavericks And she talked about luke adon checks wanted less cutting because he just wanted to know where guys were at all times, and so he’s kind of interesting thought on Who’s in the pick and roll and then how that relates to how you’re going to cut so that the decisions are Easier for that guard. 

Patrick: 1:02:04

Yeah, what he kind of said. You know, i think with that obrata that you cut, it was more of a space clearing cut and, yeah, they didn’t really look to score out of it, but the fact that it just could free the nail, keep the big man engaged and then hopefully open up that lob threat that they had. I’m with you. I think that’s what we always think about when we talk about cutting around the pick and roll, because it can be very and, like he said, too very chaotic. Like you got to read your man, you got to read the big and now you got a third body cutting in there. My last slot too, just kind of when we got into the screening, the slip versus stick. I enjoy just hearing him talk about why you know the characteristics of his guards that liked the big to slip out versus the guard To stick. You know, as we heard before, i think from other coaches too, it is very ballhandler specific and you know the screener ballhandler working on developing a relationship on when to roll, when to stay, but we haven’t talked too much on just like, well, what are the characteristics of that point guard and why he wants the slip Or why he’d want the big man to stick in the screen a little bit longer. 

Dan: 1:03:03

Yeah, no, that was a good follow-up from you and I think that, yeah, that also something we could probably talk much longer about too Is just some of those things, because it is so dependent on it. So I thought he talked about that really well, with those two different guards and the differences of the two. Quickly to close here, if we had, you know, much more time, his answer to the best investment question was Really really good, yeah, and I almost wanted to just keep going a little bit on that, and we usually don’t. I thought it was interesting the way he phrased it, and I think right now too, as this podcast is coming out, there’s a lot of movement, coaches looking for new jobs or going new places and Taking chances for staying. I think it’s just the nature of this time of year with coaches, and I thought that his thoughts on taking a chance, taking a risk, when a lot of maybe people he mentioned in his circle Thought, hey, if you leave the NBA or you leave this bubble, it’s going to be hard, and he took a risk for himself and it’s obviously worked out for him. But I could have probably spent another 10-15 minutes just asking him why and his thoughts on those things. I think that would have been interesting, and maybe we’ll have him back or something off there, but I just thought that was interesting. 

Patrick: 1:04:11

No, i agree, I was with you. I was thinking the same thing. Just risk assessment and just how they evaluate risk, how he weighs risk, of course, on top of career decisions. But I think as a coach, you’re making all sorts of decisions and They all could be risky in terms of win losses when you look into games And so just get inside people’s minds and how they think about that. Yeah, is always interesting conversation for another day, i guess absolutely. 

Dan: 1:04:34

Thanks again to coach Smith. Thanks everybody for listening. Yeah, we wish them best of luck. Boom forward and Pat, if there’s nothing else, we’ll wrap this thing up. Yep, all right, until next time. 

Patrick: 1:04:50

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please make sure to visit slapping glass comm for more information on the free newsletter slapping glass plus and much more. Have a great week coaching and we’ll see you next time on slapping glass. Dan: 1:05:11

Would we have a name yet for this thing? I’ve like slapping back or slapping glass. Slapping glass, that’s kind of funny. I like that. Let’s roll slapping glass.