stuck in the mud

“I’m good in practice but I can’t seem to get the results in games.”

“Our team seems to be improving but it’s not really showing in games.”

These are common statements made by players, coaches and parents alike. 

So what’s going on here? Why does this seem to be a growing problem? 

The issue stems from these reasons:

1. Growing popularity of “trainer culture”; more players now work with a private (1on1) skills trainer who helps them develop skills in a controlled and predictable environment (generally no defense).
 2. Coaches who want things to look neat and tidy at practice. This usually results in lots of unrelated drills where players are performing predetermined skills (often in ways that don’t resemble the game at all). The problem is games are messy. 
 3. We focus on the wrong things. The goal of any player should be to get better at things that happen the most in the game. I think we (adults in the basketball community) have steered players astray on this one. Extensive dribble combo moves, high degree of difficulty shots etc. are generally a waste of time for 95% of players. 

This does not even account for the time that gets wasted at practice when coaches spend too much time working on set “plays” rather than developing skills (which includes decision-making). Having a playbook of “plays” that players cannot execute because of a skill (decision-making) deficit will not help you improve individually (or as a team).

So it’s easy to state what’s not working - let's look at an alternative approach that actually does transfer to the game. 

First, let’s distinguish between kind and wicked learning environments. 

Kind environments, as defined by psychologist Robin Hogarth, are “where patterns recur, ideally a situation is constrained – so a chessboard with very rigid rules and a literal board is very constrained – and importantly, every time you do something you get feedback that is totally obvious, all the information is available, the feedback is quick, and it is 100% accurate….And in these kinds of “kind” learning environments, if you’re cognitively engaged you get better just by doing the activity.” Golf or chess would be kind environments. 

However, wicked environments, which is where basketball would fall, often have information that is hidden. Even when it isn’t, feedback may be delayed, it may be infrequent, it may be nonexistent, or it maybe partly accurate or inaccurate in many of the cases. There are no built-in rules and recurring patterns - it cannot be automated like chess (if A, then B). Basketball is a series of unique and random scenarios that unfold throughout a game. 

Again, the problem is we are training basketball players as if it’s a “kind environment” when in reality it’s very much a “wicked” one.

The antidote to kind learning environments that don't transfer to the game:
Constraints-based training.

This method of practice uses constraints (individual, environmental and/or task) to maximize learning a given area of the game. An example could be constraining the physical size of the court, limiting the number of dribbles or modifying the rules slightly. 

Players would still be playing the game amidst these constraints but their focus would be drawn to certain elements of the game in a constrained environment. Contrast this approach with traditional drills that essentially pluck random skills OUT of their game context with the hopes that once you go to apply them in a game context they will show up - unfortunately, the transfer is minimal. They are different tasks. And the biggest reason for the lack of transfer with standard “drills” is the absence of decision-making. You cannot separate the decision from the skill - someone is only a good shooter if they generally know when (and when not) to shoot (and obviously are able to make a respectable % of the shots they do decide to take). Simply having good shooting technique or making shots in a kind environment does not make someone a good shooter. 

So there it is, play more games to learn how to play the game. Sounds simple doesn’t it?! The art of coaching comes in with what constraints to use and when. 

All of our group based programming is designed with a constraints-based approach and we’ve seen fantastic results adopting this way of teaching.

We would be happy to discuss how you too can begin to adopt this approach to training with your team or club.