Ettore Messina on Adapting to Strengths, Playbook Design, and Logical Creativity {Olimpia Milano}

Slappin’ Glass sits down this week with the Head Coach of Olimpia Milano, Ettore Messina! The current Euroleague Head Coach, and former NBA Assistant with the Spurs, dives into the areas of playing to strengths, playbook design, and discuss practice buildups and “logical creativity” during the always fun “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”

Inside the Episode

As mentioned above, we were thrilled to be joined on the podcast this week by one of the all-time greatest coaches in the game, Ettore Messina. Coach Messina brought his valuable years of experience in both the International and NBA game as we discussed:

  • Adapting and Playing to Strengths: Some terrific insights from Coach Messina about how he thinks about forming an identity, roles, and style of play around the strengths of his players, as well as how he works to help his players understanding and playing to those individual strengths. ????
  • Playbook and Set Design: An always interesting topic to discuss with coaches on how they build out their playbooks from pre to post season, and the tweaks and changes made along the way. Coach Messina opens up on his own process as well as the size of his playbook, cuts he prefers, and more. 
  • “Start, Sub, or Sit?!”: In this always fun segment we ask Coach Messina about adaptability, creativity, and practice flow.