Non-Raider related Youth Basketball

TheNextStep

TheNextStep

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Since @Crossbones shut down the random thread, I’m hoping that he’ll let this thread live. This thread-starter is my initial post from a few days ago. Since the original thread got shut down, I’ll put updates here. Go easy on me, Bones, as I know it’s kind of unseemly to post this stuff in the main forum during the season. If you decide to move it, I won’t have any hard feelings but I hope you don’t.

Basketball season is once again upon us. No, not the NBA - youth basketball. For the second year, I am coaching the grandson’s team. The grandson’s two best friends (since infancy) are a year older than he is so they weren’t eligible for last year’s team, as it was 3rd/4th graders and the other two were in 5th. This year, it’s the 5th/6th graders league… and I got both of those boys as well! Both of these two boys have been on vacation with us multiple times, that’s how close they are. We call them “our honorary grandsons” and have for years. I could not be more excited than to have all three boys on my team! The pressure is on, though. While we went 5-2 last year, the other two boys won one game between the two of them. They’re counting on me to get them to some victories - as their moms have already reminded me.

We’re sticking with the 5 Out Motion offense as our base offense but we started installing a couple of pick and roll plays at practice tonight. The kids have the base offense down pretty well and they picked up one of the pick and roll plays so quickly that we’re already game-ready with that one (though we will still practice it more, of course). I took Teeg’s advice regarding development and learning for that age group and made sure they got really good at one thing before adding to it, which is the reason for the late-ish installation of pick and roll. Oh… and it helps that I’ve got some real shooters this year.

On defense, we had soooo much success with @Chris_77 ’s suggestion of the Box And 1 last year that we’re sticking with it. What I found out last year is that kids of this age? Man-to-man is absolute chaos and pure zone bores the shit out of them. My team last year LOVED to play defense and, so far, the kids this year are excited for it too. We tweaked it in that we are not trying to take away the other team’s best player - we are constantly doubling whoever has the ball. It’s aggressive, active, exciting, and gets a lot of turnovers. Out of all of the books I read, YouTube coaching tutorials I watched, and people’s advice that I heard, Chris_77’s recommendation to run this defense is in the top 3. Thank you again, man!

First game is on Saturday. We’re hyped.
 
Update: Tonight’s practice was a bit of a shit-show.

I didn’t tell you this before but this year, they threw me and another coach together. I’d never met the guy before. His name just showed up as a coach when they sent me the roster. I was a bit put off because, last year, I had a good friend of mine as assistant coach and I knew he’d do it again if I asked. While he didn’t have any basketball coaching experience, he’d coached middle and high school football for 25 years. We worked very well together.

That said, I didn’t want to make waves and just rolled with it. I called the new guy before the first practice. It was kind of awkward. At one point, he asked, “I coached last year and the year before that and the year before that. So who is the head coach, me or you?” I answered, “I don’t know. I think they just threw us together and we’re supposed to figure it out.” That’s what I said but, if I’m being honest, in my head I was like “I am.”

Anyway, dude shows up to the first practice. He spends about twenty minutes on the sidelines, watching me coach. Then he jumps in with some advice and… it was damned good coaching. I have found that the things that I’m good at, I’m really good at. And it seems like the things that I’m not good at, he’s really good at. Things like proper technique to box out. As skinny as I am, I don’t know that I’ve ever boxed anybody out in my life! Things like proper body position when playing defense. The little things as far as technique on defense and rebounding. I was, honestly, completely stoked about working with this guy.

The problem is that he doesn’t show up a lot. There’s always a reason and they’re always valid. His kid is on the team (good kid, too) but his older kids are also involved in sports and their team made it to state, so he missed a full week. Earlier this week, it was his anniversary. Tonight, he was only there 45 minutes because he had family visiting from out of town. Like I said, good reasons. My problem is that the guy never gives me any advanced notice. I show up and I have no idea if or when he’s going to pop in and it’s driving me a little bit fucking crazy. It’s goddamned hard to keep all of these boys locked in and focused when there’s just one coach. Inevitably, the kids on the side during any given drill start fucking off… and that shit is contagious.

So, yeah… I spent more time tonight warning kids and ultimately making them run laps than I was happy with. And I can’t get mad at kids for, y’know, doing what kids do. I am a big believer in letting kids be kids. That shit goes away before you know it and it never comes back once it’s gone. I’m just a bit irritated that all of that would have been avoidable with a second coach who could have been running drills at the other side of the court, keeping those kids involved.

It’s frustrating but I’m still really excited for Saturday. They’re all still really good, really hardworking kids. I’ve asked them all week, “who is the toughest team on the schedule this year?” And I’ve always corrected their answer by saying, “We are. We’re the toughest team on this schedule. We are a PROBLEM. On Saturday, they’re all going to find out.”
 
Oh, another thing about the new coach? We beat the fucking brakes off of his team last year. He’s been a good sport about it and has been incredibly complimentary of the grandson.

“I remember watching you last year. You were one of the best players in the league, by far.”

“You played such tough defense on us that we had to start setting screens on you, just to so we could even initiate our offense.”

I like the guy. And I respect his coaching. It’s just not asking much to fucking text me if you’re not going to be there.
 
Could you ask your mate to also coach them in the same role as he had last year? Then you have two permanent and ever-present coaches there to manage the team.
And then this new bloke can be the 'specialist coach', who can come in and work on whatever good stuff he contributes in the concentrated time periods when he shows?
 
Maybe just ask if he could give you a coaching plan for the week/month so that you can run it when he’s not around or even just see if there is one specific night he can commit to an d make that fundamentals night. But yeah, the basic communication part needs to get sorted.
 
TheNextStep said:
Since @Crossbones shut down the random thread, I’m hoping that he’ll let this thread live. This thread-starter is my initial post from a few days ago. Since the original thread got shut down, I’ll put updates here. Go easy on me, Bones, as I know it’s kind of unseemly to post this stuff in the main forum during the season. If you decide to move it, I won’t have any hard feelings but I hope you don’t.

Basketball season is once again upon us. No, not the NBA - youth basketball. For the second year, I am coaching the grandson’s team. The grandson’s two best friends (since infancy) are a year older than he is so they weren’t eligible for last year’s team, as it was 3rd/4th graders and the other two were in 5th. This year, it’s the 5th/6th graders league… and I got both of those boys as well! Both of these two boys have been on vacation with us multiple times, that’s how close they are. We call them “our honorary grandsons” and have for years. I could not be more excited than to have all three boys on my team! The pressure is on, though. While we went 5-2 last year, the other two boys won one game between the two of them. They’re counting on me to get them to some victories - as their moms have already reminded me.

We’re sticking with the 5 Out Motion offense as our base offense but we started installing a couple of pick and roll plays at practice tonight. The kids have the base offense down pretty well and they picked up one of the pick and roll plays so quickly that we’re already game-ready with that one (though we will still practice it more, of course). I took Teeg’s advice regarding development and learning for that age group and made sure they got really good at one thing before adding to it, which is the reason for the late-ish installation of pick and roll. Oh… and it helps that I’ve got some real shooters this year.

On defense, we had soooo much success with @Chris_77 ’s suggestion of the Box And 1 last year that we’re sticking with it. What I found out last year is that kids of this age? Man-to-man is absolute chaos and pure zone bores the shit out of them. My team last year LOVED to play defense and, so far, the kids this year are excited for it too. We tweaked it in that we are not trying to take away the other team’s best player - we are constantly doubling whoever has the ball. It’s aggressive, active, exciting, and gets a lot of turnovers. Out of all of the books I read, YouTube coaching tutorials I watched, and people’s advice that I heard, Chris_77’s recommendation to run this defense is in the top 3. Thank you again, man!

First game is on Saturday. We’re hyped.
Click to expand...
My grandaughter was born yesterday, I'm hoping to get back into coaching with her as I'll probably be retired when she's at the age for it.
 
Welsh Raider said:
Could you ask your mate to also coach them in the same role as he had last year? Then you have two permanent and ever-present coaches there to manage the team.
And then this new bloke can be the 'specialist coach', who can come in and work on whatever good stuff he contributes in the concentrated time periods when he shows?
Click to expand...
I feel like that would be kind of shitty to both my friend and the current coach. I don’t know why I feel that way but I do.

I’m just going to ask the guy to give me a “head’s up” if he’s not going to be there. I’d held off, thinking that once the older kids were done with state, it would be normal. After this week, I can’t take that for granted.
 
TheNextStep said:
I feel like that would be kind of shitty to both my friend and the current coach. I don’t know why I feel that way but I do.

I’m just going to ask the guy to give me a “head’s up” if he’s not going to be there. I’d held off, thinking that once the older kids were done with state, it would be normal. After this week, I can’t take that for granted.
Click to expand...
It's not shitty. You need two coaches there at every practice. Your friend is willing to be there everytime. The other guy is flaky. Let him come in when he can and teach fundamentals.
 
DonkeyKilla said:
Yes, first one! Just got her home this afternoon.
Click to expand...
Dude, you’re done. Cooked.

You’re going to be the coolest person in the whole world for about 7 years. Then you’re going to be cool, but low-key don’t-tell-anybody cool for about 3 or 4 more.

And those years, no matter how successful you’ve been or what accomplishments you’ve made throughout the course of your life, will literally be the best years of your entire life.

I’m so, so, sooooo excited for you, bro!
 
007 said:
Call him out. Boom done.

“this team of 6 year old kids needs you here! We are trying to win a championship you selfish prick!”
Click to expand...
See, I'd say that in his mind he understands that already. And he is there every time. Cos he's committed. Except of course those occasions when the unavoidable comes up, 'in which case, no-one could imagine I'd be there, right? Couldn't avoid that one thing, which had to be dealt with. But other than that, I'm there. So, I hear you. Let's go do it.'

And that situation will just continue to go on and on. Because when you call him out and say 'we are trying to win and so be committed', the mental image of what being committed looks like in his head will look different than it looks in your head. It will look like how he's been acting to date, because he doesn't accord those absences the same significance that you do. So you need to frame the situation differently, to get thru to him.

Plus of course, asking him to get his shit together, just means you remain in a position where you don't have control of the situation, which means the kids suffer too. You remain not knowing how many coaches are there until you turn up for each session. That's bullshit and pretty stressful for you too, I'd imagine.

Jayl said:
It's not shitty. You need two coaches there at every practice. Your friend is willing to be there everytime. The other guy is flaky. Let him come in when he can and teach fundamentals.
Click to expand...
Yeah, this. There's two things to fix:

1. The situation for you and the kids: the coaching set-up, so you can plan sessions properly, and secondly, the kids getting consistency and focused coaching to stop them drifting away.
2. Him contributing as best he can. (That's what you can fix - him being more conscientious, you can't fix)

And the two things are separate! Don't conflate them, even tho they are all wrapped up together at the moment.

You have a responsibility to do what needs to be done to fix (1). So take those decisions - and 'feeling shitty' doesn't come into it (within reason obviously). But, ask yourself: what will give you the circumstance you need to get to (1)? If it's you and your mate coaching together, then sound him out. See if he's up for it, and if he is, grab it.

And for your mate, I'd present it as 'Fuck, we got it wrong because here's the shitty situation and we need to go back to the set-up previously. Come back mate. We're getting the band back together.'

For the other bloke, it's 'OK, we need two people there all the time and so the other coach will be there to pick up the slack. But you're right - the team does need focus on fundamentals and I've really noticed the impact of that coaching when you've been able to do it. And so, if me and the other coach are picking up the slack, the team would really benefit from you continuing to do that, focusing on the fundamentals and on the individual coaching with kids.'

And if he says 'I don't see why the other coach is back' then be honest - 'I'm just being realistic. You've missed over 50% (or however many it is) of the sessions so far. If you start coming 100% then we can look again, but I don't think it's going to happen, and anyway, I don't think that's making best use of your skill-set. This way, we get the best of all worlds.'
 
Well, week one was a loss. 23-18. I’m so fucking disappointed and feel like I let the kids down and I hate how disappointed I know they feel. The grandson played well and led all scorers with 8 points. There are several things that we can do better.

- we’re starting our offense from too far out. I don’t care how good your motion is, if you’re trying to make your entry pass from half court, you’re asking for trouble.
- on defense, the kids are allowing themselves to be pulled out. We want to be around the key and that’s what we’ve coached. All game long though, the boys kept running out to the perimeter.
- on our pick and roll plays, the kid setting the pick kept running to set the pick. The play design is to let the point dribble into the pick, not have the pick come to him. As a result, when the point went around the pick, he was running directly into a defender. We have to stay where the play is supposed to be run.
- we have one kid on the team who is severely autistic. I coach him like I coach anyone else and had planned on using him sparingly (that’s at his dad’s suggestion). He’s a really sweet kid but, when he got onto the floor, he forgot everything I’ve ever taught him. On offense, he’d just jog to the middle of the paint and stand there. When you’re running a give and go offense, that is EXACTLY the worst thing you can do. It completely fucked up the other kids. They couldn’t cut to the basket without running into him AND his defender. That said, we were still high fiving him and encouraging him. Just because I’m venting here a little bit, please don’t think I’m upset at the kid because I’m not. I just have to figure out what the hell I'm going to do to overcome it.
- another thing that fucked our offense up was that this league for some fucking reason allows illegal defense. This team had one really tall kid and they just had him stand in the paint. Since they don’t call three second violations, he just stays there. It pisses me off because it’s just teaching kids bad fucking basketball.

Anyway, I feel like absolute shit. Hell, the game has been over for an hour and I’m probably taking harder than the kids are.

So, yeah, that’s the update for today. Goddammit.
 
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