The truth behind Culture 🏀 👀
Welcome to the 308 new readers of The Basketball Academy.
This is the day you become a better player or coach.
Today’s Basketball Academy takes 4 minutes and 33 seconds to read.
Here’s what we’re serving up:
🏀 #1 - Favorite thing we heard 🎧
🏀 #2 - Favorite skill or action 🎥
🏀 #3 - Favorite thing we read 📚
Building 🧱 an Amazing Culture 🎧
💥 Culture is what you’re willing to lose for 💥
It’s what you’re willing to lose a player, game, or job for.
Everyone gives lip service to things until it comes time to lose.
If you’re willing to lose for it, then that’s your culture.
BREAKDOWN 🎥
🔥 MUST ADD HABIT 🔥
➡️ "Catch Reads" ⬅️
John Leonzo said "Catch to Shoot" & "React to Attack"
As basketball players, we are the most open the moment we catch the 🏀
Dustin here - Currently, running a basketball clinic in Jackson Hole Wy, & the biggest difference between the higher level & “newer” players is what I call their first touch. Do they know what to do with the ball the moment they catch it, and can they perceive where the defense is in space?
The Best Book On Culture 📚
A few of our favorite messages from The Culture Code:
Gregg Popovich delivers two things over and over: He’ll tell you the truth, with no bullsh*t, and then he’ll love you to death.
At their core, their members are oriented less around achieving happiness than around solving hard problems together. This task involves many moments of high-candor feedback, and uncomfortable truth-telling when they confront the gap between where the group is, and where it ought to be.
"I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them."
You are part of this group.
This group is special; we have high standards here.
I believe you can reach those standards.
San Antonio Spurs The Beautiful Game
Did you catch the appreciation in the voice of Jeff Van Gundy, a broadcaster and former coach of the Knicks? “I hope the kids and their youth coaches tape that possession and show it on an endless loop”.
Organizations like the Golden State Warriors and San Antonio Spurs have won multiple championships by excelling at the art of ball movement.
When well executed, ball movement creates a sense of unpredictability on offense that is difficult to defend. Opposing defenses are unable to zero on one or two top scorers when every player on the floor is a threat.
Listen to the importance of ball movement for the Warriors, as explained by two-time league MVP Stephen Curry:
Steph also touches on another important benefit of ball movement: when done effectively, it creates opportunities for dribble drive penetration and even better open looks. Most of us don’t have handles like Kyrie and Harden. For most of us, it’s easier to attack a moving defender than beat a player in a strong stance.
Teams that move the ball with purpose enjoy far more dribble penetration. This leads to better and easier shots: layups and wide-open threes.
Players: as you train individually and work on your game, never forget the importance of team basketball. Regular practice and progressive mastery of the team game will make you an impactful addition to any roster!
Coaches: as we develop our young athletes, let’s remember to praise not just made shots, but the small plays that make our teams stronger too!
Bonus: Ryan Holiday Courage is Calling:
“To each,” Winston Churchill would say, “there comes in their lifetime a special moment when they are figuratively tapped on the shoulder and offered the chance to do a very special thing, unique to them and fitted to their talents. What a tragedy if that moment finds them unprepared or unqualified for that which could have been their finest hour.”
When you feel stuck, go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it will split into two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that went before it. Keep hammering away to be prepared and qualified for the tap on the shoulder.
Reply to this email with any questions or feedback. We’d love to hear about cultures you’ve found to be successful over the years!