Here's how to come off the bench COLD and SCORE...

The Yugoslavian philosophy for teaching players how to shoot coming off the bench (think Vlade Divac, Sasha Pavlovic, Vladimir Radmonovic, Peja Stojakovic) involves beginning practice with a shooting drill. This teaches players how to feel comfortable shooting when cold. At the end of practice, players would be required to compete in timed shooting and reach a particular goal....players were NOT allowed to leave the court before the goal was reached!

Shoot when cold to start practice + pressure shooting after practice = shooter's mentality

Quote of the Day:

"Even if you fall flat on your face, you're still moving forward" -Anonymous

The Fear of Working Too Hard

Gladwell: This is actually a question I am obsessed with: Why don't people work hard when it's in their best interest to do so?  Why does Eddy Curry come to camp every year overweight?



The short answer is that it's really risky to work hard, because then if you fail you can no longer say that you failed because you didn't work hard.  It's a form of self-protection.  I swear that's why Phil Mickelson has that almost absurdly calm demeanor.  If he loses, he can always say: Well, I could have practiced more, and maybe next year I will and I'll win then.  When Tiger loses, what does he tell himself?  He worked as hard as he possibly could.  He prepared like no one else in the game and he still lost.  That has to be devastating, and dealing with that kind of conclusion takes a very special and rare kind of resilience.  

Most of the psychological research on this is focused on why some kids don't study for tests - which is a much more serious version of the same problem.  If you get drunk the night before an exam and you fail, then the problem is that you got drunk.  If you do study and you fail, the problem is that you're stupid - and stupid, for a student, is a death sentence.  The point is that it is far more psychologically dangerous and difficult to prepare for a task than not to prepare.  People think Tiger is tougher than Mickelson because he works harder.  Wrong.  Tiger is tougher than Mickelson and because of that he works harder.