Making & Breaking Habits

 The hard must become habit.  The habit must become easy.  The easy must become beautiful.  ~Doug Henning

We are all creatures of habit; basketball players are no different.

Using the left hand on the left side of the backboard...applying ball pressure...sprinting the lanes...boxing out. All of these are habits that can be established or demolished.

Coaches get frustrated when players continuously do the same (wrong) thing over and over again. How do you break the chain?

The answer is simple but the time and focus on the process of forming a new habit is the challenging piece. First, I have a basic philosophy that I cannot hold players accountable for something that I have not taught and drilled. For example- boxing out. Sure, you can preach boxing out for 3 hours every day at practice and discipline the team if they fail to box out. What kind of results will this get you if you do not actively practice boxing out and follow through with reminders? Not what you are looking for I bet.

To truly form new habits for players, you must drill boxing out every day AND make it a point of emphasis during scrimmages, positional work, etc. I'm in favor of having a visual cue at practice with 6 or 7 "priorities" for play on the court that you and the players can constantly glance over at to remind everyone of what is expected (ie, ball pressure, boxing out, communication, etc.).

So, if you want better close outs- drill close outs everyday for 3 or 5 minutes. If you want better ball pressure, then drill ball pressure every day.

EVERY DAY.

I read this story in one of John Wooden's books: members of the media attended UCLA's open practice at the NCAA Championship game. They were surprised to see that 25% of the practice was dedicated to really basic fundamentals: catching and shooting without a basketball, slow and steady defensive slides, ball handling and basic transition drills. The reporters asked Coach Wooden why his team was practicing such elementary drills and his reply indicated that one of the reasons his team was in the Championship game was by perfecting the basic fundamentals of the game by practicing them every day.

EVERY DAY.