Coaching~ Teacher_ John Wooden Interview

"Your students. No two are identical", John Wooden said.
"Your players. No two are identical" he said.

He "taught" basketball.

One of my heroes. I heard him speak at Friends of Finance at the University of Tulsa about 4 years ago; he was much younger then,,, I think he was around 94 yrs old!!! Incredible speaker. Awesome man. Possibly the greatest coach ever....a true teacher.

Enjoy~

Coaches/Parents: Excellent Hoop Drills

If you are a youth coach, or a parent, and want to help your team or your kids improve their basketball skills then check out these excellent drills.

This first video is from Gannon Baker. He is one of my favorite online teachers. He is a Nike and NBA skills trainer and has worked closely with LeBron James, Vince Carter, Amare Stoudemire, Deron Williams, and Kobe Bryant at each of their Skill Academies. [You HAVE to admit that those five players form an impressive list of players who also have chosen to LEARN from Gannon.]

Ganon also has trained multiple NBA stars such as Chris Paul and Jerryd Bayless and is currently Amare Stoudemire's Personal Skill Development Coach. In addition, Ganon has authored 42 Instructional Basketball DVDs in eight years and has started his own production company, GBake Productions.

Enjoy and Learn.

In Basketball- FIVE Fingers= Team

Five fingers (people) = Team.

You have five players on the court at all times.

How good is YOUR team? Do your fingers work together as if they were one hand?

The talent and ability of each finger, coupled with how well they mesh together like a hand, will determine how good your team is.

It is very simple.

Yet, not easy.

Let's explore the offense side of the equation today. At the core, these three concepts are basic, and cut to the chase:

1. If a person can't pass, the ball stops moving.
2. If a person can't shoot, he or she will always be open.
3. If a person can't dribble, he or she cuts their value to the team by one third. (AND, if a person can't dribble, the defense will attack that person.)

Each "finger" is critical to the success of the team~

The team pictured above, Tulsa Celtics-2006, meshed and possessed the skill set which enabled them to win three highly competitive tournaments in a row. We didn't "practice" together very often, as the players were from different schools including Cascia Hall, Jenks, Bishop Kelley, Union & Holland Hall. But they all could play,,, and at least during these tournaments, all six players were focused on being a TEAM...... maximum effort with no concern other than stopping each opponent from scoring, and working the ball until we had a quality shot.

This post is about the key components of offense. Defense is simple too....and the five "fingers" working together, again, is the critical factor.