Jim and Jay Larrañaga on Coaching Your Best Players, Transition Screening Actions, and the Coach as a Gardner {U. of Miami & LA Clippers}

Inside the Episode

“I think…first of all, role definition and role acceptance are two of our biggest jobs as coaches. So first of all, we have to do all the research. We have to do all the study of really getting to know each of our players…It’s not only in a vacuum, it’s how does their game fit against the opponents we’re playing, and so I think that’s really important, all the research you do and all the film study you do in the offseason. But then the next part is, I think, just building those relationships and building that trust with each player, because some of those roles that you define for a player might not be the role that he really wants to accept.” – Jay Larrañaga

It was a fantastic week on the podcast as we were joined by the father/son duo of Jim and Jay Larrañaga! Jim (HC of U. of Miami), and Jay (Ast. for the LA Clippers) bring a wealth of experience to the show as we explored the areas of:

• Coaching Your Best Players: Great insight for both the NCAA and NBA levels on how to get the most out of your best players. We discuss trust building, role definition, playing through mistakes, offensive play design, and much more. 
• Transition Screening Actions: In our special edition of “Start, Sub, or Sit!?” we dive into both coaches’ thoughts on the best types of screening actions to get into in transition. Great nuggets on ballhandler patience and spacing concepts throughout.
• The Coach as a Gardner: Also during “SSS”, we explore some “coaching metaphors” and why Jim Larrañaga has always seen his job as a Gardner more than anything.

Chapters

0:00 Coaching Your Best Players

9:57 Coaching Strategies and Developing Leadership

23:48 Isolation and Balancing Offense in Basketball

34:46 Coaching Strategies and Building Culture

47:24 Transition Offense and Screening in Basketball

51:27 Teaching Pick and Roll Strategy

57:05 Investing in Family and Coaching Influences

1:00:45 Wrap Up

Transcript

Dan: 0:00

Start sub, or sit, for Jim. What he would say is the closest metaphor to describe coaching. So the first metaphor for coaching is the coach is a gardener. The second option is the coach is a carpenter and the third option is the coach is a painter.

Jim: 0:16

The painter. I’m not sure how that plays a role in my coaching.

Jay: 0:22

I sat in a minute and he didn’t look cute at all. He does not see it as an art. He does not as an art. He needs analytics and relationships, His players that see the game artistically. They struggle at times.

Dan: 0:42

Hi, I’m Dan Krikorian and I’m Patrick Carney, and welcome to Slappin Glass Exploring basketball’s best ideas, strategies and coaches from around the world. Today we’re excited to welcome Father-Son Coaching Duo, Jim and Jay Larranaga. Jim, Head Coaching University of Miami, and Jay LA, Clipper Assistant, are here today to discuss coaching your best players both on and off the court, including in special situations, and we talk transition screening actions and the coach is a gardener. Turn the fun and special start, sub or sit. The season is here. We know that many coaches are already looking ahead at international trips in 2024 and 25. Ourselves, along with a number of former podcast guests, cannot say enough great things about our experiences working with Josh Erickson, his team at Beyond Sports Handling flights, hotels, game scheduling, excursions, service learning opportunities and more. Josh and his team provide unmatched service and support throughout the entire trip. To learn more about why more than 650 programs have trusted Beyond Sports, visit beyondsportstorescom and tell them. Slapping Glass sent you. And now please enjoy our conversation with coaches. Jim and Jay Larranaga. Coaches, thank you very much. I know you’re very busy. You’re traveling preseason. Thanks for taking the time to speak to us today.

Jim: 2:23

Thanks guys, my pleasure.

Dan: 2:25

So we wanted to have a conversation here in the beginning of the show about coaching your best players and all that goes into it off the floor, on the court. We’ll get to both of those things and, jim, maybe we’ll start with you to kind of kick this off. For you, over the years, the different levels, all the different players that you’ve had, what you find is most important, especially kind of here in the beginning of the season, to learn and to get your best players to buy into you and what it is that you’re doing as a team.

Jim: 2:54

What’s been my routine is during the summer, before the upcoming season, I evaluate not only my team but our opponents. So I want to study the rosters that we’re going to be playing against and then look at my roster and look at my best players and see how we can take advantage of it. I’ll give you an example. Two years ago, when I looked at the ACC, every team had a bunch of huge guys seven foot, six, 10, six, nine. Half their roster were guys over six, eight, and we only had one guy on the team that really was going to play, that had any kind of sauce, is named Sam Wardenberg and he’s six, 10, weight, 215 pounds. But the key would say him was he had a six five wingspan, he had alligator arms. So if you take a look at that kind of player and you say to yourself, okay, he is a key player for us to be successful, how can we take advantage of what he does do? Well, he’s not a post up player. So what I do is I meet individually with all my guys and when I met with Sam, I told them you know, we’ve got to put you in a position where you can utilize your skills, because you’re a really smart player and you’re a skilled player. You just don’t play like a post player, and so we decided we would go to a five out offense, use Sam as the basically the point of the offense, at the top of the key, and give him a lot of touches to share the ball and pull the other teams big men away from the basket, and that seemed to work extremely well. Sam had a tremendous year. He shot 45% from three. He had a great plus minus. His assist to turnover ratio was better than two to one and we ended up having a great season and went to the elite eight. So we do that every year. Sam is just one example, but there are many that I can, you know, share with you based on the time, but I think Jay knows, and Jay’s I think, of the like mind.

Dan: 4:59

You got to put your best players in the position where they can play their best 100%, jay, flipping it to you then for you at your level, at the NBA level too, same thing, preseason, and obviously have some of the best players in the world. How do you think about how they’re going to fit going into the season?

Jay: 5:15

Yeah, I think you know, first of all, role definition and role acceptance is two of our biggest jobs as coaches. So first of all, we have to do all the research. We have to do all the study and of really getting to know each of our players. Games my dad really good point he talks about it. It’s not only in a vacuum, it’s how does their game fit against the opponents we’re playing, and so I think that’s really important and all the research you do and all the film study you do in the offseason. But then the next part is, I think, just building those relationships and building that trust with each player, because some of those roles that you define for a player might not be the role that he really wants to accept. He might see himself and know I actually think this is my role. So how do you over time, build trust with that player that I’m not only asking this for me or for the team, I’m trying to put you in the best situation to be successful as well. So I was really fortunate when I was in Boston to get to know a professor at Harvard that was an expert on trust. Her name was Frances Frey. She has a great TED talk and on it she talks about basically the three pillars of building trust. And first one is empathy. You have to be able to relate to the players. I remember I actually learned this from my dad years ago, which he learned from his older brother was the feel, felt, found method. For anyone that listen, that doesn’t know, I know how you feel, I felt that way before this is what I found to be the best result in this situation or the best course of action in this situation. So I always think about that when I’m talking to guys, because coaches are former players for the most part, at whatever level. So we’ve all experienced having to accept a role that we didn’t want and being able to remind yourself of that, that even though you’re a coach now, hey, you know what. I’ve actually been in that situation, I know how you feel, but in the long you don’t want to cut off your nose, despite your face. So the first one, I think, is empathy. Second one is authenticity that you have to be your authentic self. Players, especially at the NBA level, but I think at any level they can sniff out if you’re not being honest, if you’re just, you know, feeding them a load of crap. So as authentic as you can be. Just do what’s true to you and I think over time maybe not initially, but over time I think that players will respect that and know that you’re going to always be honest with them. And then the last one is logic, and that just means again, like you just have to really have done the film study and that what you’re telling them is accurate. Those are just three things I remind myself often throughout the course of the season when we’re trying to come up with a game plan for a game or against, whether it’s a specific opponent or just looking globally at what’s best for our team.

Jim: 7:58

Jay organized a Zoom meeting I think it was a couple of years ago and I learned an awful lot from these guys who are experts on teaching skill, and one of the very first things they said was the most important thing a coach can do Number one is learn the learner. You got to know who you’re teaching, who you’re working with, what their mindset is, how they view themselves, and until you know that, you really don’t know how to direct your comments and your teaching style. Some guys see themselves as three-point shooters and you see them as a post player. So you got to get on the same page and I think what Jay just said there is outstanding. It’s a very clear message that the role the coach plays man.

Jay: 8:39

I forget the book it was. I think it was how to win friends and influence people. There’s a great quote when it says a man convinced against his will is of the same opinion. Still, right, we got to trick them into thinking it’s their idea or we just have to give again, going back to the logic of it. No, this makes sense. This is going to make your life easier, not harder, jay.

Patrick: 9:00

I’ll stick with you. We recently had Owen Eastwood on and talked about belonging and culture, but we had an interesting conversation where we talked about your best player, let’s say your Alpha, when he’s not necessarily your best leader. And so, when you know this not necessarily trying to make him a leader but how you think about within the team dynamics of dealing with your best player when he’s not necessarily your best leader, well, when I think of leadership.

Jay: 9:23

I think it’s leading by example number one, right? So when you say someone’s not the best leader, I interpret that as they maybe have some habits that you don’t want your other players to emulate, right? Yeah, I still think the job is the same, for whether it’s your best player or your least talented, or somebody on your coaching staff, your job is to educate them as to why adopting these winning habits will benefit both them and the collective group. So I think you have to be very specific, because you can’t solve all the problems, right. You just have to identify, right, where can we get our most bang for our buck? And there was a great story I read years ago when Larry Bird took over the Pacers as a head coach and he went to every player on the team and he said what do you need for me? Give me one thing that you need from me, and the one I always remember is Jalen Rose said I’m not a three man, I’m a point guard, and my first. However many years in the league. Everyone’s trying to make me a wing, but I’m best when the ball is in my hands. And Larry Bird was like okay, I’m going to put the ball in your hands. Now what I need from you is the best defensive season of your career. So you know there has to be a give and take, especially today. I think we’re seeing just the way society is, that it’s not just a dictatorial situation. My dad’s really never coached that way. I’ve never really approached things that way, but that was a very successful coaching method in the past. But I do think it really is more of a give and take today.

Patrick: 10:53

Jim, if I can kind of pose a similar question to you, but in terms of you’re getting, you know younger players, young adults, and they’re still forming. How do you help them become better leaders, especially with your best players? Maybe you are going to hold them to a higher standard. Try to get more out of them, because you know it’ll help drive your team and drive winning.

Jim: 11:09

First of all, I always ask my team at the beginning of the season who are the leaders on our team, and a few guys will raise their hands. Some of the younger guys don’t. And I say no, absolutely not. Every guy on our team is a leader. You’re either leading in the right direction, in a positive direction, or you’re leading in a negative direction by your actions, your body language, the way you approach practice. If you’re setting a bad example, that’s leading. If you’re setting a good example, you’re leading. And you know what the most important job of any leader is To create more leaders. You want guys who believe in themselves, who want to put themselves on the line and lead. I had a team. This is very, very simple. When you talk about leadership, I think leadership comes in many different facets. Shane Larkin was a great player, acc player of the year, all American in a first round draft trust. He was quiet and some people thought, well, he can’t be a good leader. No, he was a great lead. But the way he led was not only from example, but when a guy screwed up or wasn’t doing what he was supposed to do, instead of hollering at him, cursing over something, he’d go over and whisper in his ear and say look at big fella, we need you to rebound. You get the next rebound. I’ll get you the ball and put you in position to score the ball. He didn’t scream it and yell it. We had another player on that same team, durand Scott. He was the opposite. He was vocal in your face. If you were playing lazy basketball, he’d come right over to you and say you’re not playing the Miami Web. You either pick it up or get off the court. Those two guys led us to our first ACC championship because they balanced each other out and created the leadership that I needed, and everybody else joined in. They followed those guys. So we had great leadership up and down the roster and I think that’s a big key. Leaders have to create more leaders.

Jay: 13:07

That has a good story. I don’t want to give it away, but try and remind him he had a player at George Mason many years ago. You don’t have to use the name or anything, but the player became academically ineligible during one of the semesters. You know the story. I’m talking about that.

Jim: 13:22

I’ve only had one guy become academically ineligible in the 38 years.

Jay: 13:26

Is that right? Yeah, wow, that’s pretty good, that’s good. But tell the story of the meeting when you were trying to help him develop.

Jim: 13:36

This young man was a terrific freshman, but I was constantly. I use the term correction. I don’t criticize. We have a five-step method of teaching explanation, demonstration, imitation, correction and repetition. So I was correcting him and telling him things he could have done better and maybe things he didn’t understand, that he needed to learn a little bit more. He became academically ineligible. His sophomore year he sat on the bench next to me during games and I’d be pointing out things to him that I had pointed out to him when he was playing. Now I was with one of his teammates. He ended the year and said man, coach, you were right. All the time I didn’t know you were right. I thought you were wrong. Every time you told me oh, you should have done this. I was like now I see what you’re talking about. Is that what you’re talking about, jay?

Jay: 14:21

That’s part of the story, but in one of your meetings you asked him if we had five of you on our team, how good would we be?

Jim: 14:28

I think his response was we’d be undefeated.

Jay: 14:31

Your response to him was we had five of you, we wouldn’t have a team because they’d all be ineligible.

Dan: 14:38

Well, Jim, I’d love to come back to you for a question and maybe have you comment on something Jay mentioned about the three different things the empathy, authenticity and logic. And the logic part, because, especially with best players and they feel like they can do everything at times and how you get to logically discussing shot selection, turnovers, working with teammates, system stuff, so that you’re on the same page logically as well as emotionally, like we’ve talked about a little bit in the beginning here.

Jim: 15:17

I guess I shouldn’t mention the name. We had a player who transferred in he’s 6’11”, 270 pounds and at his previous school the coach would not allow him to shoot trees. So when I met with him and again we’re talking about learn the learner I said to him tell me about your game. He said well, I’m a stretch for. I said really, what do you think a stretch for does? He said shoot threes. I said well, how many did you make at your previous school? He said no coach would play. And then he said to me are you gonna let me shoot threes? I said I had one very simple rule shoot the shots you can make. Can you make threes at a reasonable percentage? It will help us win. And he said yes. He said are you gonna give me the green light? I said no, you’re gonna have to earn the green light like everybody else on the team. He said how do I do that? I said we have a drill called five minutes. At threes, you and any of your teammates that can average 50 made or more in five minutes get the green line. If you average between 40 and 50, you get the yellow line. A little more caution, you’re not gonna shoot that. But if you’re below 40 on the average, it’s the red line. You never shoot that. That’s a shot that will lose games for us. This young man at 6 11 270 went out in the court and the very first time we did the drill he made 56. He averaged between 55 and 60 for that season. He made 75 threes that year. So, logically for me, he convinced me that this is a good shot for me and so he shot it. And he shot it at like 37%. But we’ve had other guys who try to convince me that they have three-point shooters. I just showed them their numbers and say look at, you have to prove that and that’s something I give you. You Earnings the other thing, and just like five minutes at threes, it’s a number you know, average over 50. My first team meeting in 2011 with my Miami team, the first time I met with them, I put up on the board the Ken Palm stacks and I asked the players where we ranked in the 300 division one teams where we ranked in turnovers. They all said, hey, you know, we’re pretty good, probably top 50, and not turn the ball over. I said no, with 222 we’re gonna worst in the country. They’re like what? And so they asked well, oh, how do we improve that? Because we think we’re good. I said we’re gonna have drills that will help you recognize how often you turn the ball over needlessly. And we put in a drill ball toby, t O BE, turnover, all elimination. And what we did is, every time we scrimmaged we had 12 balls in the rack. You turn it over, one ball gets eliminated, another turnover, next ball gets eliminated when we’ve turned it over 12 times, which is what we want to average, 12 or less normal balls, no more basketball Conditioning. And what would happen is, as it got narrowed down to like three or four balls remaining, a whole attitude of the players Changed. They started coaching each other say throw simple past, don’t throw anything difficult, no cross-court passes, don’t penetrate and try to read the needle. And so we got better at it and we finished in the top 50 if you was turn.

Dan: 18:21

So that’s just my way of teaching one quick follow-up and I’ve heard you talk about this before in game your preference to not Coach negatively or to want to stay positive on the sideline, and if that’s something you always did, and if there was a change, why and when that change took place. As to what you do now, after I graduated.

Jim: 18:44

When I first became a head coach at Bowling Green State University, my wife, after a couple of our games, said why do you coach every dribble, every pass, every shot, every defense? You’re up and down, you’re yelling with screaming, and I didn’t even know I was doing it, just did it naturally. As I became Older and started to study the best way to coach, I reached out to a very dear friend of mine, doctor Bob Rotello, who’s a very world famous sports psychologist, works with all the top golfers, but it’s worked with baseball players, basketball players, just all athletes. And so I sat down with Bob and he used an expression he said look at, a coach’s job during practice is to train them to do what you want them to do it on the court. On the court, you want to trust them. You want them to know that you have tremendous confidence in them, that you’re not going to criticize them for mistakes. In fact, when they make a mistake, you clap, be a cheerleader, because you don’t want them looking over it. You’re wondering if they’re gonna get pulled out of the game or that you’re angry with them, or something like that. And so I made a conscious effort to try to follow doctor Rotello’s instructions to train and practice. We work really hard, but I’m very, very positive. I try to build confidence. And then the second is to trust them during the game. Everybody sees me now and says I’m really cool. Calm boys down the sideline. But that took a long time. Jay never felt that voice. I would scream in the hall and back in those days.

Jay: 20:13

So I’d say I’m generally a pretty positive. Even as a player. I was pretty supportive of my teammates. Oh, he’s really value being a good teammate and responded pretty well to Mistakes. Similar the example he gave with Shane Lark and and then the you know, the doctor Rotello line of clap for mistakes. I just always really liked him when I went into coaching I really embraced that. So when I was in Boston I literally every couple years somebody from the positive coaching alliance would reach out to me. Oh, you’re the most positive guy on the bench. Then I came out to LA and started working with my good friend, taran Lou. This is going into my third year. Midway through my first year, we’d only coached together as assistants for one year, so we were still getting to know each other, and he either calls me Lara or he says my full name, jay Laranaga. So we’re in a coaches meeting one day and he looks me goes. Hey, jay Laranaga, let me ask you a question. How come every time one of the guys you work with messes up and I look over at you all you do is smile and start clapping your hands. See, lou, I’m supposed to clap for mistakes. You know, I’m just trying to get on to the next play as fast as possible and it took him a while to adjust to my positivity.

Dan: 21:24

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Patrick: 22:26

When we look at your best players. How do you think, hactically, from an offensive standpoint, about your team’s offense? Is it more so Trying to let’s run a lot of stuff through them versus understanding? Hey, we’re gonna just put in emotion.

Jay: 22:41

Whatever in the cream will kind of rise to the top and I texted you guys this morning Because it’s a topic that my dad and I like talking about a lot. It’s almost like system versus scouting. Whether it’s your defensive system we’re no middle, we’re no baseline whatever or no we really scout the opponent and we guard tendencies and then on the offensive standpoint, that’s also not only scouting the opponent’s, it’s scouting your own players. And are we running the flex? Are we doing this or are we really trying to get our best players in the positions that they are most successful? So I think it’s important just to have that conversation as a staff of what are we doing and does our System complement those guys?

Patrick: 23:21

Do you guys think about? You know, the skill player X. He’s really good in these spots, so it’s like let’s just run a lot of stuff. You can get him this versus he’s gonna find his spots within the offense.

Jay: 23:31

We just got to empower him to do so a lot of our coaching philosophies comes from our experiences as players, and so I played 12 years overseas at a really high level with some really, really good players, but I was a shooter and I really needed my teammates help to get shots. My best years were when the coach was very specific of okay, our out of bounds plays are gonna be for our shooter or we have to remind ourselves All right, atos. You know, with a lot of NBA teams are at ATOs, we’re gonna get our shooters going. The most frustrating thing for me as a Complimentary player and I think that’s really important we’re trying to build a system around our best players that are other players that we need to win the game still enjoy. And the most frustrating games for me throughout my career is if we get it down early or, you know, the other team gets a slight lead and we immediately started going high, pick and roll because our best player was a point guard and we all knew last five minutes of the game that’s what we were doing. But, as a complimentary role player, if you start going high, pick and roll five minutes into the game, well, it’s really hard. So I always try and remind myself of that. Hey, we have to keep everybody engaged. We want to create good teammates, right Like. That’s the most important thing, and your style of play can either help that or hurt that your access to analytics.

Patrick: 24:55

So when the analytics are coming back saying just go to your best player on these spots every time, how’s the coaching staff? Are you kind of fighting that or thinking about that too? When the analytics say, maybe these plays aren’t great but, like you said, it highlights our complimentary players and it keeps them involved for the whole course of the game?

Jay: 25:12

I would say I was lucky enough to have a conversation with Michael Jordan one time, and and talking about defensive strategy was actually defensive strategy against LeBron. And what do you do? We’re talking about it with Joe Kitch now. Right, do you just let them score as much as possible? Or you’re more concerned with not letting the rest of the team beat you? And Michael Jordan says you just got to take away all the role players. The role players are the ones that you know are gonna end up hitting big shots, like Bruce Brown, my dad’s player, bruce Brown how important he was in the finals and the other role players throughout their great run. But he had a line. He’s like you know, if you make me score every time, I’m not gonna score like a hundred points. You know I can get probably like 80, you know 85, but I’m not gonna get enough to be able to beat you. It was dead serious and I was like all right.

Patrick: 26:03

Jim, if I can throw the same question to you you mentioned at the beginning, you know You’ll scout all your opponents and understand where maybe your strengths will be, but when you then think about your offense and your best player within that offense Okay, so in the beginning of every year I explained to the players what our offensive goal is, and that is to average 75 points or more.

Jim: 26:25

And we break it down very simply is there’s five positions on the court. Each position should average 15. That would give us 75. That doesn’t mean those 15 points come from the same guy. It could your starter, your great player, isaiah long, this year average over 15 again. So he took care of that to guard position. But we have a player who averages 10 at the three guard position. We need a guy coming in off the bench. You can get five or six points to help us. So we make it very, very clear to our players that the offense has to be balanced. We want good shots both inside and outside, and we’ve used analytics since the time I started coaching, when I was an assistant coach at Davidson College in 1971-72 season. We were using plus minus. I focused on the number one hey, if we can average one point for possession or more, our offense is being affected. If we can hold the opponent under one point for possession, our defense is being affected. So in talking to our players as the Games go on, the best players tend to in our offense. Know, hey, I’m gonna get plenty of opportunities but the ball is gonna be shared. That’s one of our ten commitments. Number seven is share the ball. But at the end of close games I put the ball in the hands of the best player Shane Larkin in a game winner in the NCAA tournament to beat Illinois. Luke Hancock did the same at George Mason to beat Villanova. Will Thomas did the same thing against Connecticut in overtime to beat the University of Connecticut. Get to the final four. We’ve done it throughout my career and the players kind of know once we call this particular offense it’s for our best player to go to work. So Isaiah Wong is five, six minutes left in a two-point game. I call the time out and say, hey, I’m gonna put Isaiah at the point which he rarely played. We’re gonna run horns for him and say you just make the decision. And as the players take the court I call Isaiah back and I said, say, just score. And that’s what he would do. But I think in Jay’s point he was a great three-point shooter and a great leader for our team, because we had some other guys who were really not always Leading in the right direction, but he had a way of also hitting big shots for us. And I remember we had a conversation and he was headed to France. We kept discussing visualization how much you have to visualize yourself being successful when the game is on the line, whether you got to hit a big free throw or get a big rebound or get a stop. And in one game, jay hit a three and got fouled to beat Ken Sting on the road and it was a huge game for us. We won the regular season because of a win like that. You have to have individual players who are willing to take on that responsibility. You call them your clutch players. Well, you got to have a couple of those guys and you’re going to win because we play so many those games, whether you’re in college or the NBA.

Patrick: 29:28

And Jim, when it is in these crunch time moments and you’re going to isolate your best player and this is why I think it was fun to have both you on the compare contrast across levels, leagues but how do you think about just isolating players and creating space and putting them in spots within the college game?

Jim: 29:44

Within our different offensive schemes we can create different situations for each individual player. It’s not just for one guy. We might run a player from last year’s team. We might run it for Norshado Mirar, big guy, and he knows we call five died, we’re putting the ball in your hand and telling you to go to work. If we call Indiana, which is where Nigel Pack is from, that players for him. If we call Philly Woga, Papa knows we’re doing it for him. If we go horns, everybody knows that’s Isaiah’s player. So we might have different situations that the players have to kind of understand what we’re looking for, what their role is in those. But I’ve had situations in CW tournament that play that Shane Larkin hit the shot. I called a time out and stopped him at mid court and said, hey, what do you want to run? And he just said give me what we call double rocket at double ball stream and let me make a decision.

Jay: 30:32

He hit a step back three. I have a question Step back three to his right or his left?

Jim: 30:37

The ball screens took him to his right, right in front of the bench, and then he went to his right hand to let the end step back.

Jay: 30:44

That’s what he does, just piggybacking off what my dad said Educating guys on strengths and weaknesses and tendencies, and it’s educating the individual player of them knowing their own game and then educating their four teammates that they also. If Shane’s teammate doesn’t know he wants to do a right to left crossover, to a step back and they crowd, they don’t allow for that driving line to his left, no one might notice that Shane misses the shot not because of his defender but because of the help. And when we talk about isolation spacing and it happens a ton in the NBA there was when Golden State had Steph and KD. They were very, very clear that they would get into a three in one spacing allowing for a drive like Steph wanted to get left. And they would always clear that left elbow as you face, knowing all right, that’s where he wants to go. We all know that let’s not get in his way. And then we trust him to make that same decision. You know active spacing guys when they especially in the NBA players are so good with the ball that they get disinterested when they don’t have the ball. And I think just helping them recognize the value of actively and consciously spacing and intentionally spacing, basically to put the defense in as difficult a position as possible. To defend one on one, I think is really important.

Patrick: 32:05

Jay, when you’re thinking about an isolation, will you run false action to get into that spacing? Or simply put, we’re going to give him the ball and you know explaining the spacing that is optimal for the guy you’re isolating, to your players.

Jay: 32:18

So a couple of things. Going back to what my dad said. He asked Shane, what do you want to run? I worked to run Lou, unbelievable communicator and relationships with our best players, and whether it’s in practice, whether it’s in the course of the game, he’s going to ask him where do you want the ball? And he might follow it up with. Well, why might be thinking well, this is the best place for me to get a shot, but I want to leave your options open to either drive or be able to get an assist on, and that what side of the court or what we set up could determine that. Back to your question, patrick the higher level you go, the harder false action becomes, because guys are really, really good and don’t really. you know, it’s like the old Larry Bird story of a forget all that, just get me the ball. At this level you got to find that happy medium and, I do think, an area of growth for the game, especially at the NBA level. My dad could speak in college, but there’s so much more switching right now. So the action you create might not necessarily be false action. But hey, we’re going to go with DHL, with our point guard, and our four men are going to go DHL. They switch one through four. So now, all of a sudden, we have their point guard guarding our four and therefore guarding our point guard. We can then advance the ball, swing it back top and now we have an ISO with who we want to ISO against their worst defender. So I wouldn’t want to call it false. I don’t think you should have false action. Every cut needs to be intentional, every cut needs to be a scoring cut, because players aren’t done. If they think it’s false action, they’re not going to execute it with the pace and intentionality necessary for it to be successful. But I do think, with all the switching nowadays, I think you can really manipulate some matchups, maybe even a little more organically than in the past because teams are so willing to switch.

Patrick: 34:03

Jim, as switching becomes more and more in college, or when you are facing a switching team with your staff, are you thinking again, if we frame it within your best player, well, we can run these mismatches, we can get a lot of advantages for our best player. Or again, is it just like we’re just going to run our stuff and when they occur we’ll address it?

Jim: 34:20

We evaluate personnel ours and the opponent. So one of my very typical ideas is, when my scout team coordinator gives me the scout, one of my first questions to him is if they’re switching, who’s their worst defender? Is there someone we can pick on? Is there a slow guy who can’t move his feet? He’s a good offensive player, really should. Defensively he’s a weakness. We played a game actually two games come to mind. We put the same freshman on his man Ballscreen. I said whoever he guards, that’s who Ballscreen’s for our point guard. He was not a point guard, so he was going to play guard our two man, three man or even our four man. I said whoever he guards, that’s the first Ballscreener. We get him in a switch and we attack. We scored at a very, very high clip. Another game which we won on the road. We played tremendous offensively. There was a big guy who didn’t guard Ballscreen’s very well and I told our team before the game we’re putting him in a hundred Ballscreen. Started the game we got ahead because he couldn’t guard the Ballscreen and we scored. Our point guard was going to score by crazy, so the coach called a timeout and every time our big guy ran out the Ballscreen he sent his four man out to guard him. So I got the timeout and said okay, we’re going four ins now he’s got to guard one of these two guys, just use the guy that he’s guarding. And we ended up winning, I think, like 90 to 73 on the road, a big ACC game to a team that was in the top five teams in the country. So Jay and I think are on the same page. You have to know your personnel and what you’re good at each player that you can mold your offense around the guys you feel like can execute the best. And then you’ve got to evaluate the opponent and all their strengths and weaknesses so that you can attack their weaknesses, take advantage of those weaknesses. That’s our game preparation all the time. We have a football staff, have an offensive coordinator, defense coordinator, scout, team board, and they each have their own responsibilities to educate me as to what they believe is the best way to attack, best way to defend, and what the personnel on the opponent says is the best way to go.

Dan: 36:34

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. This has been awesome so far. We want to transition now to another segment on the show, kind of a lightning round segment that we call Start, Sub or Sit, and so how this works is we give you a topic and then three different options and ask you to start one of the options, sub one of the options and sit one of the options. Since we’ve got both of you here on the show, we’re going to do kind of a special edition of this. Sometimes we call it the newlywed game, where we’re going to ask one of you what they think the answer for the other one will be, and then we’ll check back in to see how close they were. So we’ll really see how close this father-son relationship is.

Jim: 37:46

You guys know, when Jay was eight years old, he sat next to me watching the video breaking down tape, so he’s done this for 40 years.

Jay: 37:56

I was eight years old. I don’t know if there was video.

Jim: 37:59

It was VHS tapes.

Dan: 38:03

Okay. So this first question. What we’re going to do is I’m going to ask Jay the question to what he thinks Jim’s answer would be on this, all right, and then Jim will flip it to you and see how close Jay was on the Start Sub Sit. So Start, sub or Sit for Jim. What he would say is the closest metaphor to describe coaching. So the first metaphor for coaching is the coach is a gardener. The second option is the coach is a carpenter and the third option is the coach as a painter or an artist. So Start, sub or Sit. Your dad’s order of those I’m going to go reverse order.

Jay: 38:39

I’m going to sit the painter, I’m going to sub the carpenter and start the gardener.

Dan: 38:44

Okay, jim, how close was he?

Jim: 38:46

Well, he’s gone on because both of us have read Daniel Coyle. You guys know Daniel Coyle, of course. In his 52 habits to develop skill he always talks about you’ve got to plant the seeds after a gardener and then you’ve got to nurture those seeds to help your players develop the right habits. But you then you also have to be a carpenter where you know when you’re building a table those legs have to be equal. So it’s a lot about the detail. You’ve got to break down the detail and then the painter. I’m not sure how that plays a role in my coaching.

Jay: 39:18

I sat in a minute. He didn’t compute at all.

Jim: 39:22

That’s why I sit here.

Jay: 39:24

He does not see it as an art. He needs analytics and relationships, His players that see the game artistically. They struggle at times, Jay.

Dan: 39:38

I’d like to flip it back to you on. You gave your dads and you were spot on. Would that be the same order for you? You’re kind of looking at these. It would be. We see the game very similarly, jim. I’ll come back to you. I’d actually love to ask about your sub, which is the carpenter and making things, even I guess the process of coaching. You know, that’s like that mid-season type of thing where you’ve figured out, maybe preseason, what you’re going to run and how it looks, and then you’ve planted the seeds, but now you really have to fall in love with, I guess, the process and for you, over your career, what about that process that you’ve learned or you love the most?

Jim: 40:14

Well, you guys know who Dick Bennett is, the great coach of Wisconsin, wisconsin, green Bay and Stevens Point. I learned an awful lot from him. He had 10 affirmations that I converted to 10 commitments of the way we want to play basketball and I always go back to them. You’re five defensive commitments, five offensive commitments, and the five defensive commitments is basically one possession of defense. What you want to do, five commitments on offense or what you want to do on offense, I’m of the belief that you have to have a very clear vision, as the head coach, of what you want your team to accomplish, and for them to do that, they got to buy into the vision. The only way they can buy into it is if they can see it. So we have printed boards with the 10 commitments and the players recite them every single day. So when it comes to mid-January, february, when we’re trying to figure out about our game, we go back to those things and evaluate are we doing the five things we said we were going to do on defense? Are we doing the five things we said we were going to do on offense? And the players can easily understand that because they have to do it every day in practice.

Patrick: 41:23

Jay, I’m really interested what the role culture plays at the NBA level. We talked to a lot of coaches obviously Jim included who I think they can really build a strong culture Not that you can in the NBA, but from our conversation it seems a very prevalent piece in the college game and I’m just curious what role does culture culture building and having a vision play within the NBA level?

Jay: 41:45

I think it plays a huge role. A friend of mine has a great line intentionally or unintentionally, every organization has a culture. Each school, universities, athletic programs, professional teams. You’re going to have a culture. You want it to be intentional. A lot of people define culture differently, and what actually is cultural? I’ve heard people say culture is what you’re willing to put up with, or culture is whatever. For me, this is what culture is. I wrote this down many, many years ago. I said what I personally believe culture is is culture is one person deciding what the group will and will not tolerate and the group accepting and supporting that person’s right to decide. I think you have to go back to role definition and acceptance. Who’s establishing our culture? It really comes down to one person. These are our core values, the habits we’re building on a day-to-day basis, and so somebody has to be willing to set that tone. I thought Tim Duncan was a great example of that in San Antonio and, to my dad’s point, he didn’t do it with a lot of words, but he decided what the group was willing and not willing to accept and everybody in the room gave him the respect to decide that. I think it’s super important and I think it’s just an ongoing process because it might change. Another friend that has a great line that everything is written in pencil. You have to be willing to change with the times. You have to be willing to change with the different groups that you’re going to have, the different teams you have. My dad has his three core values that he bases his program on and those have maintained really consistent throughout his career.

Jim: 43:17

When you talk about culture, I read a book about I don’t know, 25, 30 years ago by Jim Collins, called Good to Great. One quote really stood out. I highlighted it and I repeated it over and over again. He said get the right people on the bus and then decide where you’re going. And so I think the number one thing in building culture is with people who are of white minds. Not talking about, yes, people. I’m talking about people who understand the vision, the values you want to implement, and so I try to hire the best assistant coaches, but they might not be the best basketball minds. I’m looking for people who are like-minded with me. My associate head coach, bill Courtney, I hired when he was 26 years old. He’s now 53 and he’s bounced around in his journey, but he’s fantastic. You go to war with a guy like that because he buys into the vision and he helps you to sell that vision to the players. And then he also recruits those players who he knows and tells the other assistant coaches hey, these are the guys that will play well for Coachelle. This other guy, he’s not going to play well because Coachelle’s not going to put up with his hand. So you got to build the culture and it’s based on three words attitude, commitment and class. We want everybody associated with the program to have a positive attitude. You heard how positive Jay is with his coach and that I am with mine. It means total commitment to being the best that you can be on the court, in the classroom, guys who want to be students, guys who want to be in the gym. And then the last is class. We want role models. We want guys to behave in a first class manner. So when you can recruit those kinds of people assistant coaches and players and you surround yourself, that’s your culture, it’s the people and it’s interesting because everybody has their own recruiting philosophy and their own things.

Jay: 45:07

in the NBA, in the draft, coaches, GMs have certain things they like, certain things they look for in recruiting. I always think Florida State loves big guys. Right, they always have a big, huge front line. My dad has had two Final Four teams and they played very, very different styles of basketball. But if you looked at the personalities of the players on the team they are very, very similar. He recruits personalities. He doesn’t recruit a specific type of player. He recruits somebody that he wants to spend time with, that he’s able to talk on the phone with and build a relationship with. It’s one of the really great things about my dad’s career is that he’s played a bunch of different styles. I played formally, played fast, he’s played slow, he’s run a bunch of different offenses, but his recruiting process of identifying the character of people he wanted to be around has been very, very consistent.

Patrick: 46:03

All right, great answers there, coaches. Thank you for sharing, jim. I’m going to be asking you what you think Jay’s response will be, and this has to do with transition offense. What would I want to say? Yield the highest PPP, but would be the most effective action that Jay would want his offense to do in transition Start subverset, get a ball reversal in transition, get a rim runner or a rim cut some sort of threat on the rim in transition, or set a transition screen.

Jim: 46:33

I would guess I’m not sure you know now, with the three-point shot and he was such a helpful three-point shooter, I’d like to get a three here, I would say a rim runner because you want to get a layup first. If you can get an easy layup, that’s the best, that’s a sure. Two points I’d put screening in transition. I’d say that’s second for him, and then ball reversal, because transition oftentimes is an outnumber. I’ve told him and my players throughout my coaching career basketball is a race. There’s about 70 of them and if you can outrun your opponent more times than they can outrun you, if you can get a layup or open three before their defense is set, that’s the best offense. I don’t know if you guys know this, but on my any team the last two years we’ve had more points in transition with the highest field open set of any team in the country. And we said that our 10 commitments the first one is the offensive portion is run for layups and open threes. So I would say first would be rim runner, run for a leg. Second would be get a screen in transition and create a defensive challenge. And the third would be ball reversal to hopefully create a close up.

Patrick: 47:46

Okay, all right, jay, thrown it to you. How close was he? Was he spot on he was.

Jay: 47:51

I started to smile when you started the question because my initial if I was guessing his answer, I would have guessed. He asked well, who were the players Right? That is always the moment he starts talking X’s and O’s. And do you want to do this? Well, he’s going back to what we said. Who’s my best player? Is he good at that or is it? You know, that’s exactly what I’d say. I’d say the transition offense is always going to be better than half court offense. You know, I’ve spent a lot of time working with point guards in particular of how quick can we identify? Do we have a number advantage? We have a number advantage. Push the ball, ideally with the pass. If not, get it up the court as fast as possible. If we have a number disadvantage, then create a screening action to create an advantage. You know, be patient enough to get some form of a screening action to get an advantage. Could be off ball or on ball, but yeah, that was spot on.

Patrick: 48:42

When he said who are your players? When you’ve had successful transition teams, what has been the makeup of your team?

Jay: 48:48

Larry Drew, who I’m fortunate enough to work with long time NBA coach and player. He said first of all, if you want guys to run, you better pass it to him some. So why is Denver have such a good transition? Because Yokech is going to advance the ball. You want to have a good transition offense. I just heard someone talking about this, but it’s the guys without the ball have to sprint as hard as they can. I think it was Kevin McHale talking on a podcast recently and it’s really, really important. The guys without the ball have to sprint as hard as they can. You’re running for layups, you’re running for threes and you’re not slowing down as you approach the three point line. You continue to run. And then you need ball handlers that know how to make the right play. Like I say a lot of times, you don’t want to out kick your coverage, right. So ball handlers coverage is his wings filling the lane. If he’s out running them and they’re not running fast enough and he’s pushing the ball too hard, then the defense doesn’t have any choice to make. It’s very clear. If you have no other options, you’re going to shoot the ball. So it’s going to be much easier to load to the ball. You end up with those contested layups in transition where you have multiple guys contesting the shot, and that’s obviously now what you want Always say we got to go a little faster without the ball and we got to slow down a little bit with the ball, jay you mentioned.

Patrick: 50:02

If you can’t get the advantage off of a rim run or the push, then look to maybe set a screen to build an advantage. If we remove the drag screen, what other screens are you guys trying to work with? Or and how do you coordinate? I think you can always get a drag screen. I think you’re going to gym, everyone’s going to start running drag screens, but how do you coordinate? Maybe other screens in transition that can occur naturally, and then also the timing tempo, so that the screen they’re going to be contacting an advantage can be built?

Jay: 50:28

Years ago we did an offensive teaching tape me and one of our video coordinators and put a lot of time into it and when it ended we watched it, felt good about it and he said to me he’s like okay, so when our five man sprints were really good and when he doesn’t, we’re not very good. When you have a high energy five man, so a drag is good, but if you can get a five man that can get up ahead of the ball and set a step up at 25, 28 feet, it’s really, really hard to guard. I think the other thing is all about teamwork. It’s all about knowing your opponents. We played Dallas years ago and Jose Wamborea and Devin Harris would get one dribble at backdoor in transition every single game. Harris would just break it off right at about the foul line, extended Jose, they make eye contact. Oh, by the way, my dad coached against that northeastern a billion years ago, but it was, you know, two veteran guys. They weren’t the most athletic players on the court but they were really smart and they used good teamwork to create that advantage.

Dan: 51:27

Jim, as you mentioned, you guys one of the best teams in transition. You’ve also been historically one of the best teams scoring out of the pick and roll with your guards throughout the years. And I just would like to ask the different levels college and the pros with the setup, with scoring guards in the pick and roll, and just thoughts and teaching points on whether it’s a drag or whether it’s a middle ball screen to really be effective in that pick and roll, because you’ve both of coached players that are so effective. And so, Jim, I guess, kind of asking maybe you first your thoughts on younger guys and teaching them the art of how to score out of that pick and roll.

Jim: 52:01

First of all, the game has changed from when I played. Even though the pick and roll existed back in the dark ages, a lot of basketball then was ball movement, man movement. Because of creation of these individual work guys. They spend a lot of time teaching, dribbling, and so guys can go between their legs a million miles an hour round their back and span and do all this stuff. So what the NBA has done over the years is create more ball screen situations. So, whether it be in transition or in the half court, what we do every day in practice, we have a drill called ball screen reads. It’s a three on three drill that the defense is going to and we have three offensive players going against three defensive players. We have 12 guys on the team. So you’re rotating from offense to defense and my assistant coach in charge of the scout team is telling the defense what defense to play this particular possession. So we might say we’re going to switch, we’re going to show, we’re going to trap, we’re going to ice, and so the offensive players have to read that and we then coach it Again. I told you explanation, I’m going to explain how to attack each of those different defenses and we’re going to demonstrate. The veteran players are going to see the defense play. Each of those defenses I’m going to explain. This is what you should be looking for. And then the third thing is the new players will have to imitate it. The four is the coaches that will correct us will still make mistakes, and then we’re going to repeat it over and over again. So a good example and I’ll use switching because we talked about it earlier. Our expression is boomerang. So if we get a switch, let’s say five ball screens and five is going to pick and pop the five man switch down to our one. He obviously has the dribble so he could attack, or preferably, what we really want is him to throw it to the five man or his teammate. The five man defender is naturally going to then try to help. He’s going to drop, because big guys always drop. They want to get back in the paint, and then we throw it back to the point guard and try to get the big guy on a close up. So it’s the best straight line drive situation. You can also put the ball on the ground. The five man on offense is then cutting, trying to take the little man out of the play so he can’t help. And then the five man should work for offensive position or post up position. So each defensive strategy we have an offensive strategy to combat that. And ball screen reads is a drill we do every single day. So it becomes very natural for our players oh, this is they’re switching, oh they’re showing on this, oh they’re trapped.

Dan: 54:56

And everybody knows what we do against each of those defensive Situations love that, and I guess jade just kick it back to you too on similarities or differences with. You know Some of the most elite guards in the world that you’ve coached.

Jay: 55:09

That’s a great drill, by the way, but I think, when you look at, I think it’s important for coaches is, I think you’re offensive and defensive Philosophies need to mirror each other. So, defensively, how do you guard traditionally? How do we guard a ball screen? Or what are we telling our guys? And then dock rivers used to have a great line. He’d say you need to hit your man before the screen hits you if you’re guarding the ball. So the moment you hear the call ice, weak, soft, whatever, show you’re getting into the ball and you’re getting connected to the ball handler, forcing him one way not getting rejected. So to me, offensively, it’s pretty simple. You got to get separation from your defender before you use the screen. The best pick and roll players are the ones that are most patient to Get separation from their man and then use the ball screen when you get a little bit anxious. And it’s like we tell our big guys that the communication to me is always wait for me, wait for me, wait for me, let me set the screen. If it’s a zoo, watch and every time out a VG quiet, just wait for me, I’ll get you open, because the worst thing that can happen is an anxious ball handler leaves early, you get an offensive foul on your big now you’re in foul trouble now. He doesn’t really want a screen and I think all of us want to have physical Offensive teams, physical defensive teams. The patience in it is really important. I think. Just as simple as hey you got to get separation before you use the screen. I think is a very simple thing to focus on and it’s very helpful for the ball handler.

Dan: 56:39

Well, guys, thank you very much. You’re both off the start subberset hot seat. You were perfect six for six on your answer, so all that time spent with your dad at eight years old watching those VHS tapes paid off. So thank you, guys, both for going through that. We’ve got one last question to close the show for you each before we do, though, thank you very much for your time today. This was really enjoyable conversation, so thanks to you both. My pleasure, yeah, you guys do this fun.

Jay: 57:03

I like talking hoops.

Dan: 57:05

We’re gonna end with a question that we ask all the guests, and we’re gonna ask you first, jim, and then Jay will come back and we’ll finish with you. Jim, the question is what’s the best investment that you’ve made in your career as a coach?

Jim: 57:18

Well, this has always been my belief. My investment has been in my family, my wife We’ve been married very happily for 52 years. Our investment in our sons, our children, that was most important to us, that they’d be happy and successful. So we emphasized education. They both were Dean’s List students and we wanted to invest time and energy on them. I was not making any money, but we make sure they got private school educations Because we felt that that was a good step in the right direction. And now we’re trying to do that same investment in our grandchildren. We have four wonderful grandchildren a granddaughter who’s 20 years old, heading into her junior year. Jay’s daughter, tia is his son James, who’s now 17 and going into junior year of high school. And then my other son, john, has two sons, john and Henry, and they’re actually, when I leave this zoom meeting, go to the airport to pick them up as they’re coming for the weekend. So my time has always been invested in them. I try to watch all of my son’s games as much as I possibly could and help them, and my wife invested in their Education as much as she could very well said and Jay will close with you.

Jay: 58:28

I’ve got one wrong. I was playing the newlywed game. In my head I thought he was gonna say the pilgrimage he made to Dick Bennett’s to spend a weekend with Dick Bennett after Dick Bennett’s Wisconsin Green Bay team held our bowling green team to like 42 points in a game. Oh, I got that from a quick story which goes along with my answer. I just got back from Croatia visiting Evita Zubat and their general manager of their national team is a guy named Yasmin Repesha who’s an elite coach, has coached all over Europe, played against him a bunch of times when he was in Bologna. He’s coach, real Madrid coach. Just, I’m sure you guys know. I was asking him what influenced his career growing up and he said when he was a very young assistant, he took a team of young Croatian players in the early 90s to the United States and they did a tour to play against a bunch of colleges. And he said, yeah, we actually went to Wisconsin, green Bay and played against Dick Bennett. I kind of shared my story of you know how influential he’s been on my dad and then Consequently on me, and Repesha is telling the story. He’s like you know we go to Green Bay and you know they’re warming up and I don’t want to say this, but they had more white guys than we were used to having. On an American team and so I’m thinking, oh, finally we can get one win on this tour, we get, we end one a game. And he said and they came out and just kicked our butts all over the place, it was the best defense we ever played against. I never even heard of these guys. He said, but dick Bennett was very giving to him and there was a huge influence on his career and what he learned that day. So for me I’m gonna say it when I was a young assistant with the Celtics, I was fortunate enough to go spend a weekend with Steve Clifford and it was really just two days of Learning from somebody and somebody that was just very, very giving and just a great person, very humble. Obviously he’s been very, very successful in the coaching business, but he was just so giving in his knowledge and his experiences. I still every year I’ll go back and look at my notes from that visit.

Dan: 1:00:44

All right, pat. You know, having two guests aren’t at the same time it’s always so much fun. And you know, having Jim and Jay father son duo first time we’ve had that so that was a lot of fun as well. And then both of them are just such high level Coaches and great personalities and I almost feel like we need to be here today. We could have just had them log into, zoom and turn the mic on. It would have been a great podcast by itself.

Patrick: 1:01:07

Yeah, their dynamic was really entertaining and I think you mentioned it directly after the pot. I mean there were a couple times where Jay was asking Jim some follow-up so we could just kind of sit back and just have front row seats.

Dan: 1:01:18

But it was a lot of fun, really enjoyable, like we’ve mentioned and everybody knows I mean Jim obviously so much success a couple final four runs With George Mason and now with Miami and Jay doing a terrific job, one of the best assistant coaches and coaches in the NBA, with the Clippers now, and so the two of their minds together was great to have on. And so you and I just to kick this off we talked for a long time both with the Larenegas and amongst ourselves about you know what to start this conversation about, and we ended up settling in on coaching, your best players and the art and Science and all that in between, because they both have unique viewpoints on it one at the college level, one at the NBA level and we thought it would be interesting to just hear their thoughts on, at the end of the day, how do you get your best players to play hard, to play well and to buy into what you do. And so there’s a ton in here. I know we’ll get to, so I guess I’ll kick it to you first on anything in that first bucket that compare, contrast conversation, I think was really think a unique approach.

Patrick: 1:02:19

We wanted to pick a topic that allowed us to explore how it’s similar, how it’s different at the NBA college level and I am glad when we settled on and, like you mentioned coaching your best players and coming off of our conversation with on Eastwood, I think it was kind of fresh in our minds too. We had a lot of, let’s say, ammo and some thoughts on it. So as I look back and look at my notes, where the conversation went and where I really appreciate their thoughts was how you build trust. I think the biggest thing with your best players and they both were spot on is you build trust with your players, and I wrote down role definition, role acceptance. I think we can define roles as a coach, let’s say that’s the easier part, but getting those set that role and that comes from trust when it comes to any player. But of course, your best player is going to be probably a big driver and your overall team success Really liked all the thoughts that they had on there. I mean within building trust. Jay went into the pillars of the empathy, authenticity and logic when building trust with a player. I enjoyed that and the empathy the field felt found approach to building empathy.

Dan: 1:03:16

I think one of the things that I just I don’t know like throughout that conversation, what was interesting to hear and I think think about is, like we just mentioned, building trust is obviously what every coach wants to do with their best players, but I think the way that they both got to it was interesting and how they thought about it, and it’s just more than you know. Conversations here and there, things like that those are obviously important, but I think, like the logic part of it too, was important of showing them whether it’s analytics or through the shooting drills, the green light stuff, which I’ll hit on a second you know here’s some logic behind how I think about you as a player and why I’m going to put you in these spots, and here’s the evidence that you’re showing me as a player. And you know there’s some trust building there because you’re taking the time to really get to know them as a player. And then I think Sharing obviously parts of yourself and having empathy for who they are as people goes a long way. So you know, it’s like this multi-step process to get to where they actually do trust you because they know rationally Things make sense and they know emotionally they’re safe. And then I think the added part too that I really like and Jim talked a lot about it was just giving them confidence too is just such a huge part of coaching your best players and and we talked about being positive during the game and you know how he’s kind of shifted on that throughout his career, as Difficult as it is for coaches, because just feels like his role is to make sure his best players feel confident, play Well during the game, aren’t looking over their shoulder.

Patrick: 1:04:43

Yeah, I like hearing Jim talk on that change of perspective because it is like you said, it’s a hard balance. But it is true, at that point, in that moment, when you’re playing a game, you can’t really teach that player anything more or get him any better. That’s all done in the practice the days, the weeks before. So why bang your head against the wall or make them look over your Shoulder? This is who he is at this moment and we got a role with it and we got to just maximize it and let’s be positive and courage. And I mean you can control it, of course, with the Substitution, but you’re not gonna make him any better or any more skilled at that moment in time. I think, as a coach, with his perspective of just understanding that and realizing you’re gonna get more out of the players through positivity and negativity at that moment.

Dan: 1:05:21

The other thing I just wanted to touch on gosh. I have so many stars on this piece of paper here, but I love the discussion about the green light shooting and the turnovers, where you know, take a ball away and then if just nice little nuggets about some practice wisdom there, that I liked and specifically the green light shooting stuff which you and I talked I’ve we’ve done those as well different types of variations of those green light shooting drills. That I love because it does make it easier to discuss if a guy’s a shooter versus an on shooter or his role within the team, because You’re not just telling that player, hey, you’re not a shooter. Or hey, this guy is, you’re not, whatever it is. No, there’s evidence saying, okay, well, we’re gonna do these drills and here’s the benchmark and if you can shoot it at this high enough clip, then by all means, then you can shoot that great shot. And if you can’t, then this is what it is and you need to work on it and it it’s been good over the years, I think, for my standpoint, having these kinds of drills to broach that discussion of when a good player is in the yellow light Area. It helps and say like, okay, but how do you still help us?

Patrick: 1:06:25

Yeah, and I think the conversation he mentioned or reference was the transfer who came in and was telling him oh, he’s a stretch for, or he’s a or. He can shoot the three. And it’s a very simple conversation. At that point it’s like okay, well, like everyone else, you just have to prove it, and if you prove it, you get to shoot it. And there’s not a debate, there’s no gray, it’s just right. You’ve proven it or you haven’t. This is then where you stand with your shooting and on the team. I agree it’s. It makes your job as a coach made a little bit easier.

Dan: 1:06:51

You have to follow up about culture in the NBA, you know, versus college, and that’s a interesting discussion in itself. And I think Jay said he had a good quote of you know, intentionally or unintentionally, your organization has a culture and I don’t remember if that was in starts over sitter in the main bucket, but that was a nice quote.

Patrick: 1:07:09

Yeah, and I think it was the start subsets, so it’s a good jumping off point. I mean, hopefully I was clear with that question because of course there’s culture in the NBA and every team has their culture. But I know a lot of our conversations that we have with college coaches. There’s really a huge emphasis on their culture and we always get good nuggets coming from college coaches.

Dan: 1:07:26

So it was fun to kind of throw it to Jay and hear his view and how they also go about Creating culture in an NBA organization for sure, and I guess, since we’re kind of in starts upset now, it’s always fun the newly wed quote way to play this and they were spot on Six for six with their answers. So they obviously know each other well. I’ll start with the one that we asked Jay for Jim about. You know the coaching metaphors and some background on. I’ve heard Jim Other places and discuss those about coaching and, as people can hear, I mean he’s been around the game for so long and has such a great view of what coaching is and so I’ve heard him discuss a couple of those before. I think we were trying to figure out the third one which he ended up sitting, the painter or the artist. So we chose that because other coaches have described coaching as kind of being an artist in a sense. So, going to his start in his sub, the gardener and the carpenter I’ve heard him speak a little bit before on that and I liked asking him that question again. On, just you know what it is that a coach is doing every day and you’re planting the seeds of stuff that you’re not gonna see the results for a long time. Also, him talking about the carpenter stuff too, of just constantly, every day, the process of sanding down the things that need to be, you know, worked on, whether it’s culture, whether it’s exes and all that kind of stuff. And for us this question too.

Patrick: 1:08:43

I knew we wanted to get to a kind of a coaching longevity Question or just again getting his perspective on being around for so long and being successful in a lifer in this business at this point. I like how we package the coaching long question into these metaphors and what’s fun to hear is and I think that’s them when we got into Talking about his culture that he’s built over the years and his ten commitments five defensively, five offensively and that attitude, commitment, class and recruiting personality. So I think that was what inspired that question. It was really just cool to hear him talk and get his thoughts on just how he views culture and builds it now and what he views His role as a coach is.

Dan: 1:09:21

Before we get to the second one, I’ll just give you my miss on the podcast right now and it was kind of within this conversation and I said we always say miss, not their fault, but just wish maybe we had to have more time. I believe was in that part where he talked about the trust he had. His assistant coach has been with him forever and you know someone that just gone place to place and there’s so much trust built up in there and you know you and I talked about this how there’s just some people in whatever circle of coaches you’re in high school, college, nba, doesn’t matter your coaching circle there’s some people that just over time, garner more and more trust and respect amongst their peers for a variety of reasons. And then there’s others that, variety reasons, don’t or bounce around or, you know, don’t stick long because of a variety factors. And I just with Jim having such longevity in this business as a head coach, and Jay obviously now been around a long time too, hearing their thoughts on the characteristics of coaches that stick around a long time and like what they actually do to build that trust amongst their peers so that when a job opens they’re always on the list to call, or when someone takes a new job, they’re taking that coach with them, and I think it’s much more than just we align. Exes knows like we both know how to teach how to press and trap. It’s way deeper than that, obviously, and I think that would have been interesting to maybe go down that rabbit hole a touch too.

Patrick: 1:10:44

I agree moving on the throat to you to start, but with the question I asked Jim for, jay on Transition offense or any of your takeaways or highlights you had with that, start subset.

Dan: 1:10:56

Yeah, well, in the little bit behind that question. To you know, jays talked Before other places as well about transition Concepts and thoughts. We had a great opportunity to have breakfast with Jay in Vegas during the NBA Summer League and at that breakfast had some fun conversation about drag screens in transition, and so we just thought let’s ask him a transition question, and he obviously sees these in the NBA a lot. So I think right away my first takeaway is just that Jays very conscious about how to play Well in transition. You know it’s like the numbers, the advantages. First takeaway I’ll give you was about if you’re not with the ball playing faster Basically like getting to lanes faster and then you have the ball playing a touch slower. Those like this concept of teaching how to read with the ball versus get out and run when you don’t have it. That was a really good point. I had that double starred. I stole your point there, sorry.

Patrick: 1:11:48

No, that’s okay. It’s okay. I Like to. I think it was your follow-up because then we got into ball screen offense within the drags and you followed up. I asked and Jim about how he goes about teaching the ball screens because they’ve had so much success in Miami. Jay had a great quote to about don’t be an anxious ball handler. I think when it comes to setting up the screens, making reads, jim gave how they taught it with three on three and, you know, forcing them to attack different coverages. But I like, then Jays point about the anxious ball handler and helping with Decision-making, because you reference something. Obviously there work with some of the best guard world and what he’s kind of noticed and taken away.

Dan: 1:12:26

Yeah, and I think that kind of tied back to our first bucket conversation about giving confidence To your best players and a lot of times your best players are in the ball screen. You know, or at least one of your two guards are gonna be in it, and so I think kind of picking their brain in that section about how they teach how to be great ball screen coaches, because Jim’s teams historically have been great scoring out of the pick and roll at the college level and obviously Jay has coached some of the best you know pick and roll players in the world.

Patrick: 1:12:56

I know one of the other quotes I think he was mentioning with the ball hander, as they hit the man before he hits you. I like another approach to creating contact or, you know, setting up, be again more proactive than reactive or new being Shader physicality wise and we’ve seen that a lot with the study of a lot of the great International point guards.

Dan: 1:13:16

Before they get to an on-ball, they’re gonna create that initial contact before the screen gets there so that they’re in charge of the back and forth of the physicality. Well, we appreciate Jim and Jay for coming on. We wish them best of luck in their respective seasons and thanks everybody for coming on path. There’s nothing else. Do this again next time. It’s good. Thanks everyone.