Reader Response

Reader Coach R - NJ writes:

When you get down to the last 2 or 3 kids who will make the team, its all subjective. You cant predict whether the kids you select there will turn out to be lifelong basketball junkies or if they will become disinterested and go on to play other sports.

The players that you didnt select, including some of those who were definite no's could turn around and decide to play the game and become future hs stars.

In other words no matter what you do, you are going to make mistakes. You can just try to pick your team in the fairest possible manner so that you have a team that you can teach and train and coach which will be attentive and work and play together.

All very true. And it's why I wasn't regretting my decision about who to take, so much as feeling guilty about cutting Noah.

He goes on to ask:

One question - what is your aggressive rebounding drill?

I call it Animal Rebounding. You put 4 or 5 players underneath a basket. The goal is to get 5 points. You get a point by getting a rebound, scoring a basket, blocking a shot, or stealing the ball. You are only allowed a limited number of dribbles (except to bring the ball back into play from out of bounds). You're not allowed to kill another player, but fouls are not called. When a player gets 5 points they exit the drill. I run it so that the first player to exit does 3 push-ups, the second 5 push-ups, third 10, fourth 15, and fifth does 15 and a suicide. I start with like size groups but about half way through the season I mix it up more as that really helps the little guys get used to being banged around when they drive into the post. It was the second most popular drill we did last year.

Reader path12 writes:

Aren't you limited exactly to team size? If you don't think taking Jack was a bad move, who could you have let go in order to retrain Noah?

I feel for all the kids who get cut. That happened to me a couple times and it sucked.

I took 11 kids. I could have taken 12 without any problems. The problem comes in playing time. So yes I'm limited in team size, but the decision for 11 was my restriction, not an external one.

And yes the whole getting cut thing sucks. That was me for every time I tried out from 4th grade to 7th grade. And for the most part I don't feel bad about it. Last year's decision between Gordie and Cameron, which considering how Cameron came out at this years tryouts might have been the wrong one, isn't one I regret. I also don't regret cutting Miles, who I think is an unbelievable kid who loves basketball, or Kevin, who made a real case for himself as a post player.

But Noah, yeah I'm having trouble with Noah. I feel like all he did was do everything I asked of him. I keep feeling like he upheld his part of the bargain: He listened to what I had to say, he attempted to do what I suggest, and it worked so he listened to more of what I said, he showed he loved the game (by playing it all summer long), and my part was to give recognition to that. Don't forgot it wasn't a case like with Miles where the attitude was all there but the athleticism, and to a lesser extent, basketball talent wasn't. Noah wasn't the most athletic kid, but he had basketball talent. The kid might drive me nuts at practice, but that doesn't mean he didn't want to learn, it just means he drove me nuts. That's my problem not his. So once I imputed a flaw on his attitude, something that is true with Jack M, than it became about talent and athleticism, where Jack M had him beat. But the accounting I gave him there wasn't fair. He has far more positives there than negatives and there is a reason that people both online and in person were telling me that. I regret it because I like to live up to my word, Noah thinks that I do live up to my word, and so he's not, I'm guessing, going to be mad at me for being cut, but instead say he wasn't good enough. But based on the criteria I laid out, he probably was.

Meeting with HP Varsity Coach and Current Thoughts

Last night there was a meeting with the coach of the HP varsity basketball team. It was a good meeting. I got a nice zone offense to try with my 4th graders who don’t have as much ability to make skip passes, the big problem with the zone offense I tried to use last year with GL. From tryouts I think that offense, which I like better, will work this year with GL 5A, but I have a backup now for that as well. I also picked up a few useful drills, that I’m excited about and will be using. It was also nice that some of the biggest points that impacted on others, were things I already did. Things like having shooting drills be competitive or not ignoring how to catch the ball (though I did pick up a nice new drill on how to do this). But I will say that one thing that really hit home was how “Basketball is a game of mental transitions”. This was so true and will be a new teaching point I want to use on occasion, as a reminder.

It’s also nice since I get to take all of this positive energy and excitement and translate it into a practice. Saturday is our first HP 4A practice. I will be following pretty closely my plan from last year. We’ll start off with some talk about expectations, follow it up with some conditioning work, some wrist work, how to pivot, how to jump, do some very basic shooting stuff, and call it a day. It’ll be a real day for fundamentals.

My plan had been to kind of just copy what I had done last year with this 4th grade team. However, reading things over from last year I discovered that I was quite unhappy with how practices went before games started. So while I’m keeping the first practice the same I am going to have to do some serious work on the practices that follow.

One other final note. I am not somebody to regret things. I have made some bad decisions in the past, some decisions I shouldn’t have made, but I don’t tend to regret those. After I make a decision I move on, since there’s nothing I can do to change the past. However, the decision not to take Noah continues to linger at me. I think I was wrong to not take him. I’m not sure I was wrong to take Jack over him, but I was wrong not to find a way to take Noah. I talked a good game about what was important to me, and Noah took me seriously, did what was asked of him, and was close enough that he deserved better from me.

GL Tryouts Night 3: We Have a Team

Well it was the night to really see who had what. As I started tryouts, promptly at 8:15, all were there except Dante. We immediately kicked off into our 5 on 5 games. First with the fair teams. Andrew showed that he indeed deserved to make the team, as did Cameron. Jon also felt strongly positive about Dante. Tom, by virtue of his have shown up, made the team. Even better is that during one of the second set of games, Tom actually took a shot. He air balled it, but I was just so happy he actually shot the ball, as he’d become loath to do that by the end of last season.

The initial 5 on 5 was nice, but far more instructive were the uneven 5 on 5 teams. The second team made up of Brian, Cameron, Dante, Jack P, and Tom showed that they could run, at least for a bit, with a team of Andrew, David, Justin, Lucas, and Scott. At one point during the game Justin got the ball at the 3 point line, Dante was sticking back giving him space (as he’d been told to do last season by me). Justin decided to take the shot. It was gorgeous and a perfect swoosh. There were murmurs of approval. There was then a great moment (at least from my perspective) when I said, “We don’t settle for that shot after 1 pass”. The murmurs went away.

More interesting was the way Team 3 played. This had 3 players on the very close bubble: Jack M, Jake, and Noah. Noah and Jack M stood out above the others. In fact perhaps the sweetest play of the night was a pass Jack made to Noah cutting through the lane which resulted in Noah making an easy lay-up. Basically those two were competing for the last slot. Each team plays two games, with it being 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th followed by 2nd vs 4th and 1st vs 3rd.

I then sent them off for a water break and conferred with Jon. He reiterated his support for Cameron and Dante, which I both agreed with. Cameron in particular won me over with his speed on defense. I conferred with people online and with Jon in person and with all of them pushing Dante, and Dante doing much better than Jake, inside (though Jake is likely a better shooter) that suggestion was given and accepted. In the end Jon didn’t seem to have any feel for Jack, but felt that Noah would play well and admitted that he liked the family and that was likely coloring his view. I agreed Noah had a great family. However, by the end of the water break I felt that Jack was the better player and I had made the tough decision in my head.

I gathered everyone around and talked about how now was the time to be supportive of friends who didn’t make the team. How, if you made the team you needed to be committed otherwise you were stealing a place from someone else who could have been a good member of the team. I also reviewed what would happen. I would give them the note card, talk about the strengths and areas they could improve and they could either stay or go at that point.

When this was all said and done, Emily, my boss at the Park District, came into the gym upset with me for having done this. I didn’t back down, and raised the points that everyone found out equally, I told players they could walk outside the gym after they found if they wanted (and explicitly sat by the door, for just this purpose. Overall, I hope I did the right thing by these kids by giving some immediate feedback, but I don’t know. I do know I was respectful to and upbeat about every kid who didn’t make the team. Hopefully that means something, but having to confront ones peers, as they choose to do, couldn’t have been easy. It won’t be an option again for the future, which in some ways is nice, as it takes my unease out of the equation.

Notable Cuts
Kevin – My first cut. He took it really well and set the precedent of staying in the gym. I wished he had gone out and not been able to handle, seemingly, the news so well.

Noah – He could barely hold it together when I told him that he hadn’t made the team. I told him I really did think he had improved tremendously and if he kept working hard and improving that he’d stand a real good chance for next year. I specifically suggested that he play a bunch with his brother so he can play against someone bigger and work on that. I really like Noah, despite my aggravation over his lack of focus at practice. If the final decision had been between Noah and someone who hadn’t been on the team last year, I’d have given the nod to Noah. I really hope he works hard this coming year.

Daniel – This kid did something which surprised me each night at tryouts. He kept hanging on barely and was a surprisingly tough cut. I think in most years he’d have made a GL team. A real nice kid.

Godie – The other player from last year besides Noah to get cut. I think he knew it was coming. Wasn’t a whole lot to it. He’d really have to work hard and improve a bunch just catch up to where players were this year, let alone where they’ll be in a year.

Meet the Team
So while I still feel upset and confused about the cuts, I feel an equal amount of excitement over this year’s team. I think this team is better than HP’s 6B team, and in fact I am going to try and arrange a scrimmage early on just to prove that very point. I think we are, top to bottom, a better team than last year.

Me - Hopefully I’ll be able to be a good enough coach for the talent assembled. My friend Jeff asked me if the key to being a good team was coaching throughout the season or picking the right players at the start. I said I didn’t know. If it’s the latter I think I did a good job. If it’s the former, only time will tell. I will say that I am in a much better place professionally and given my recent success at work, and coaching last year’s basketball and baseball teams I don’t lack for confidence right now. At the same time I worked REALLY hard on preparing for tryouts which I’m pleased about. Confidence and hard work are good things, I would hope, to be in a coach.

Andrew – As I mentioned I started with Kevin, which was done semi randomly, and then went down the list alphabetically telling each player. For some reason, on impulse, when I got to Andrew I asked him what he saw as his strengths and weaknesses. He identified something which I don’t remember and shooting as his strengths. He identified rebounding as a weakness. I think I perhaps did this to get a sense of his personality as he was pretty quiet overall. Anyhow, after I did this and told him he’d made the team (I immediately told all the people who didn’t make it, as I just felt that was right) he let out the biggest sigh of relief. I’ll be interested to see how he fits into the team dynamic but I think I’m going to like him.

Brian – I haven’t really talked much about him, other than that he was a given. He’s a great shooter. His ball handling skills aren’t as great as I would like and he does make passes which get intercepted. The biggest deal is that he had a rough bout of injuries a year ago. Coming into last year’s tryouts he had just gotten a cast off after 4 weeks after breaking his ankle at camp. A week after practices started he broke his other ankle. I don’t think he’d full recovered by March. However, at this years tryouts he was quick, as he was at least years tryouts. Hopefully he’ll stay injury free this season. He is a rather large hot head and can really go off on himself, and others, though more often on himself (or at me because of himself). So there’s that whole side. But he’s also a kid who, if he likes them, will go out of his way for others. I wasn’t surprised he would talk up another player after Night 1, not to tell me how to do my job, but because he was worried that the kid had had a bad tryout. He is just thoughtful, being the only player on the team, for instance, to ask me when my birthday was. On his note card, I had listed two areas for improvement. I told him the first was based completely on last year and that was playing team basketball and that he hadn’t done anything to the contrary during tryouts. Of course that was also true last year which is why I put it on the card anyway. I also talked with him on his tendency to try and play defense in a way that allows him to steal passes, at the risk of leaving his man open. When we did the triangle passing drill on Day 1, I noticed him doing this, just as he had last year. The nice thing about Brian is that I this year I start with a huge amount of built up trust with him. I know on multiple occasions he’s said, when I’m not around, that I’m awesome and his best coach ever. This has, and will, make dealing with him easier than it would have been otherwise.

Cameron – Before I talk about Cameron now, let me post what I said about him last year during tryouts

Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either.

Well that’s certainly not true any longer. Cameron has tremendous speed. He is, I believe, after Jack P and David our fastest player. Jon pointed out that you can’t teach speed like that and I had to agree. When it was time for Cameron to come up, I told him how glad I was to have seen him on the first day of tryouts cause he was the last player I cut last year. I told him that he’d improved tremendously and congratulations on making the team. My impression is that he’s more of a me first player right now rather than a team player. I am hopeful, and optimistic, that the general team ethos we have will rub off on him.

Dante – First I should say that when I was debating about whether or not to take Dante, I wasn’t fair to him. Of the three areas I was evaluating (athleticism, basketball skill, and attitude) I focused entirely on his short coming, athletic ability, rather than on his tremendous strength of attitude. I’m real glad several people focused on that and pointed it out to me. I mean the kid practically hugged me when I told him he made the team. I commented to him how his post play had really improved and he said he’d gone to a camp for that. I’ll have to ask him what camp that was since it did him a lot of good as he was a bit of a weak player inside last season and I gave him the Dirk Nowitzki award to recognize the fact that he had a pretty good mid-range shot. I told him that the big thing this season was going to be his speed. I wasn’t worried about it on offense, but was concerned about it on defense. He took this area to work on the best of anyone in that you could tell he genuinely wanted to improve on it. I told him he’d have to work hard to earn his minutes and he seemed excited by the challenge.

David – David should be the best player on the team. David should be the best player on either team in many games. He’s fast, can use either hand to dribble penetrate. Guarding him in practice is always a pain. Best of all he’s not selfish in the least. He, more than me, deserves credit for the unselfish ball we played last year. With his example, my encouragement fell on receptive ears. I will say that this tryout format allowed me to do something that I’m not sure I could have ever done otherwise and that is for me to tell David honestly how much I respect not only his basketball ability but also how he works hard to be better. I had never told him that last year. I had done so in other ways, and I think he knew that I knew how special he was but I felt it was important for me to vocalize it to him. His areas for improvement was that he needed to show more often that he was having fun playing basketball and to not feel the weight of the team on his shoulders. I told him how he knows that I don’t run the offense through one person and that already I could see people who had stepped up after he quit starting to defer to him (Lucas and Scott were both guilty of this) and that it didn’t have to be that way, so he could relax and just do his best. Finally, I told him that I was going to ask a lot from his defensively. I said that I was going to have to ask him to guard big guys this year as we have a bunch of people who can guard guards but fewer who can guard inside guys. He nodded his head in understanding. As our talk ended I commented how I was glad he’d come out as I’d heard a rumor that he was trying out for the JCC team and he chuckled in a way that told me that was not a serious consideration. That made me feel good.

Jack M – In the end Jack made the team because he’s short but he knows how to compensate for that as much as possible and he sees the court well. He is also surprisingly good at penetrating going left or right which takes defenders by surprise. I was tough on Jack. I called him over and asked him why he deserved to make the team. He talked about his ball handling and passing. I agreed with both of those areas. I asked him why maybe he wouldn’t make the team. He couldn’t come up with anything. I gave him a moment to think and he still couldn’t come up with anything. So I told him that he was one of the 10 most skilled players out there, but that I was concerned about what things would be like for him this season. How I was concerned that being a gamer the losing would bother him. I told him how he’d really stepped up for us last year when David left the team, but that there is a lot more talent on the team this year and he’d have to earn every minute he played. By this time he was incredibly choked up. I then told him he had made the team. He kind of spit out “I thought I wasn’t going to.” As I’ll talk about when I get to Tom, I didn’t really weigh the three factors equally, but I am glad to know that as a coach, I have enough credibility in Jack’s eye that even though I told him he was one of the 10 most skilled players that I would leave him off the team because of the other factors. I ended with Jack saying that I really had confidence that he’s older and more mature now and so I have confidence that he could handle these issues. I then repeated myself, not for effect, but more out of nervousness. Conciseness would have been better in this situation so it was unfortunate that I didn’t deliver this last point more effectively.

Jack P – It is little known but September 19th besides being International Talk Like a Pirate Day is also “Give Jack a hard time at tryouts” or at least it was in GL. Unlike with Jack M, I told Jack P right off the bat that he’d made the team. I then told him that I’d considered not taking him after Night 2’s tryout. I then explained to him how it was ridiculous for me to even think about that. I told him how his speed and defense were too good to not have on the team, but that he was the lowest percentage shooter last season. And how missed shots drive me nuts. I will be explaining to everyone later how a missed shot is, in my eyes at least, the same as a turnover since we are giving up the ball every time we miss a shot. I told him that this season he was going to either have to improve his shooting percentage or we’d have to find other ways for him to contribute on offense. Jack just shook his head that he understood, but Jack is always a bit of sphinx when I talk seriously with him and so I’m not sure what was going on inside his head. I really wish if I knew it was “Coach is wrong and I’m going to show him” or “Coach is wrong and is an idiot” or “Ok I’ll have to do better” or “I’m awful”. I just don’t know. I do know that Jack was new to GL last school year and he had been a leader in Massachusetts so he’s got some good qualities there, even if he doesn’t yet have a firm place in the social structure here yet.

Justin – Poor Justin was the last kid to go. He actually talked some tonight and I think I’m going to really like him and will be a kid who I’m going to have to shield to some extent from his father. I told him how impressed I was with his shooting ability and that the 3 point shot he did was a beautiful shot. The admiration in my voice was clear. However, I also told him that he could ask people on the team about how I have sat people who have shot beautiful shots like that without working the ball. I also told him that I put on his note card as an area for improvement “It sometimes seems like you’re half a second behind what is happening” but that I wasn’t sure that was true at all. I said that I had detected something in his playing which bothered me but couldn’t place my finger on it yet but that we had a full season to figure it out. I also told him how I was real happy he came out for the team this year as I’d noticed how good he was when we played against him last year. Justin is going to be an incredible tool for us to have on offense. If he, Brian, and David can give us some credibility on the outside, causing other teams to guard us closely there, in particular Justin drawing out the big man, or forcing a team to go to zone, I think we can then use our speed to take advantage of them. The possibilities of Justin excite me.

Lucas – Lucas is a great kid. Where as last season I forced him to play post, he has grown more up than out and I’m not sure he’ll have the bulk to do that this season. I also know that we’re doing a much more sophisticated defense this year and that Lucas is going to struggle with that at first. Not a whole lot to say here as he was an easy pick as he just has a lot of good qualities, but nothing as outstanding (or negative) as some of the others. I had a real hard time, in fact, coming up with an area to work on and ended up putting “Being more of a leader on the floor” as he’s a real quiet kid but one everyone likes. He was, based on his name, the first kid to make the team. I’ll also point out that his father just LOVES me and his mother likes me a lot too. It’s nice having a couple of parents so firmly in your corner.

Scott – Scott told me he played guard a whole bunch at camp over the summer and kind of enjoyed it. I’m sure he did. I’m glad he’s willing to do that. I hope he’s still a scrappy kid as we need kids who can guard big kids. Sadly, like Lucas, he’s grown more up than out, and I don’t know if he’s big enough to play the post anymore. I hope he is though since he’s a tough defender, probably the best on the team after David. The neat thing about Scott right now is that he really doesn’t know just how good he is which makes him so absolutely enjoyable to coach since he’s got so much potential but works so hard.

Tom – Noah was probably a better basketball player during tryouts than Tom. However as I’ve said from the beginning Tom could make the team on attitude alone as long as he showed me SOMETHING. When talking about how I was looking for athleticism, basketball skills, and attitude, I talked extensively about attitude and didn’t really explain athleticism. Yet, when compiling the team I only really considered attitude as a secondary factor. It was ALMOST enough to keep Cameron and Jack off the team but in the end their talent won out. Noah was a mixed picture but overall positive in the attitude category and he didn’t make the team in favor of athleticism and skills. I’d like to think if we didn’t have so much talent I would follow my own dictum better, and in fact advocated that very position to Jon during his 4th grade tryouts for a couple of players. I don’t like it when my rhetoric and actions don’t match up so I will have to really rethink about this in the future, but for now it is simply a disappointment with myself. I think I would be less disappointed with myself if I’d considered this more in the case of Dante. I did think about it in Lucas’s case but he was a nearly automatic player so that doesn’t really count for anything. All that is a long way of saying, I think the world of Tom and he is the only evidence of my not having been completely hallow in what I said. I was quite concerned, as he’s a bit of a perfectionist, that he’d cut himself after he had a poor showing on Day 1. When I talked with Tom, I told him that while his shooting accuracy might not be there he had beautiful form and we’d work on his shooting this season together.

So that’s the team. I really do think they’re more talented than HP’s 6B team and if that’s true we’ve got a real chance of being better than the .500 team I thought we’d be. That said, practices don’t start for a month so in the meantime we’ll be focusing on HP which is meeting weekly.

Looking Back and Ahead

As I setup this blog it was interesting to see how my impressions have stayed the same or changed since the tryouts.

For instance, I successfully nailed Brian (who I had spelled Bryan) as a kid with a bit of an attitude after the first tryouts. So far this seems accurate. I also predicted I would need to use Tom as a guard/forward simultaneously and this too has proven correct, however I proved to be overly pessimistic about how successful this would be . I thought more highly of Noah during tryouts than I do now. I also foresaw some of the problems with Gordie that have cropped up (as I’d completely forgotten how borderline he was in making the team). Fortunately, I made the right call there as Gordie has not really been a problem even if there have been problems (if that makes any sense).

I so foresaw the idea we’d only have 7 players at some game. Of course I thought it would be in February. Does that mean in February we’re going to end up with 5 or 6? Please let that not be true.

I had an opinion of Jack M that more closely resembles how I feel he plays during games than how he practices. Seems like he’s a kid who really needs stress to play as well as he can.

I did not work on zone busting as early as I had originally planned to.

I completely conflated Gordie and Noah in my mind at the time, though reading back on it I was able to put the right name to the right kid.

I haven’t done as good of a job of reinforcing some of the skills we did that first week through-out the season. Working on the proper grip, for instance, or doing the jumps, or wrist flexes, are all activities I should do for 30 seconds here or there. That’s one reason for the scavenger hunt, which was a successful solution to this problem.

I also now know the results of all of the weekend’s games. First, HP won two games on Sunday, including one against a team that had won the previous week. I thought they were a fairly good team, and they showed it, as playing two games on one day is not an easy feat. MP1 defeated MP2. MP2 is our next opponent and has scored more points then our previous two opponents. I really anticipate it should be a good game. If we can win that by a decisive margin of victory I am going to start to believe we have something special. In particular, I’m looking forward to seeing how our defense does. It was “easy” to defend against NF2 and HP, neither of whom have shown that they score points (HP won its game 19-18 and 19-13, while NF2 had only scored 8 points the previous game). If we can limit MP2’s points, as they have scored 40 and 24 in their first two games, I will grow very encouraged about our prospects.

Thursday morning I woke up and made the final cut, Cameron. When I was telling the story to a friend, explaining how I took Gordie he quipped “So your receiving corp in football would be TO and Randy Moss?” Have to admit that stung a little. I did retort that taking Cameron was the equivalent of putting in Kerry Collins in as your QB “nice enough, but do you really want Kerry Collins?”

So basically right now we’re in a month long hiatus. My first practice is scheduled for October 23. With the Monday/Wednesday combination being bad news for Dante, and my own having commitments on Wednesdays I looked for a different day of the week for practices and came up with… Friday. Can’t wait to spend 6-7:30 on Fridays in a gym. Fortunately, after 5 weeks we can switch to Tuesdays for the rest of the season, which runs through the middle of March, making the season about 5 months long all together (and making the 10 weeks of Baseball seem like a sprint).

With the dynasty going on hold, essentially, for a month, though I will post any updates as they might happen, I thought it would be good to try and introduce the players. I’ve talked about many of these players already but let’s look at the Kid Coach's 2005-2006 4th Grade Travel Team.

I’d debated a few different ways of organizing this list. I’ve decided that I’m going to go by offensive position and, with-in position, skill, as I see it now. All players will be expected to learn 2 positions eventually as with only 10 players I need a good deal of flexibility in the players I can put on the court, especially for that game that’ll inevitably happen in February where one kid is sick, another has a twisted ankle, and a third is in Vail for the weekend.

Before I break it down by skill let me explain, roughly, what each of the responsibilities will be for each player in the offensive I am working on finalizing. This obviously could change as I work to break down what I want to run into a level that I know can be well taught to and learned by 4th graders.

1 Spot – Your traditional ball handler. He is going to be the player who’ll normally take the ball up the court. Will have primary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks, but depending on where in the offense we are, this could fall to the 2 or 3 player as well.

2 Spot – Stays primarily on the perimeter, though he will sometimes penetrate. Will often be the first look for the 1 player or else setup the first look (via screen). Has secondary responsibility for getting back to prevent fast breaks.

3 Spot – In many ways the trickiest spot in the offense to play. Has both perimeter and post responsibilities, though because of the talent will be on the perimeter more than the post. Along with the 2 will be the first look for a pass from the 1.

4 Spot – Is primarily involved in post play, though not exclusively. He will come out of the post often either to help screen or in order to clear space for the 3 or 5. Is the least likely to shoot the ball.

5 Spot – Your traditional center. Primarily in the post. Is almost always responsible for rebounding.

You will notice that I've written about perimeter play. This is a tad misleading as while they often do their work there, I do not really want my team shooting, for the most part, beyond 10 feet. This means that we’re using the outside to create space/opportunities to work it inside. I expect to see a lot of zone so we’ll be working on zone busting skills such as quick (and skip) passes. Also important will be the concept of screening to get someone the ball not for someone with the ball.

And without further ado, this time for real, let me present my 2006-2007 4th Grade Travel Basketball Team. An asterisk means that if I fielded a basketball team tomorrow they would be starting.

½
*Noah (primary 2) Obviously positions are still fluid at this point. I have slotted Noah here tentatively because of his skills, but his size might find him in more of a 2/3 role before things are all said and done especially as we have, as expected, a surplus of guards. As mentioned before, I like his penetration skills, which shows his ability to dribble so he could even end up finding himself playing more of a 1. While his shooting form might not be the prettiest, he is accurate. During the scrimmage I said that the next time he drove in he should find a team mate to pass it to and he did exactly that suggesting he is willing to implement instruction. He did a few other things, such as mostly pay attention, that suggest he will be teachable (or in this case coachable).

Jack M (primary 1) First let me say there is a definite chance that I have the Jacks backwards. I think I have it straight, but am not sure. Anyhow, short Jack has a nice dribble and can do it with both hands. He is inconsistent, which is actually a complement at this age, at dribbling with his head up. He’s a pretty scrawny kid. Has an average attention span for a 4th grade boy, which is to say not a whole lot.

Gordie (primary 1) Gordie is a small kid. However, he’s got a good shot and better range than some of the kids taller than him. I’ve discussed him pretty indepth in my last post so not a whole lot to add here. I will just stress that the negatives that I talked about before could really impact his role on this team.

Tom (primary 2) It might seem weird that he is ranked below Gordie, who was the last player to make the team, but of course it wasn’t Gordie’s skills holding him back. I was really hoping Tom would have been be able to play a 3 for us, but he’s not there yet and I’m not sure that trying to make him into a forward, even a soft forward, is the best use of his practice time.

2/3
*Brian (primary 2) Brian is a very solid player all around. Not quite as solid is his personality. On more than one occasion he made a negative comment during tryouts. Something like that I am quite confident of my ability to stomp out. I simply don’t tolerate it. In fact, I will likely be opening our first practice with my saying something to the effect of “I’m the coach and I’m here to help you grow and to help you win. Your job as players are to listen to me and to support your teammates>” Or something like that. Anyhow, Brian is tentatively slotted as a 2/3, as I think we have some better dribblers than him, though he does have a good crossover.

3/4
*Jack P (primary 3) The more I see of him the more he impresses. He did well in our lightening game, I believe, and seems pretty solid all around. I also really liked his attitude which goes well with his, seemingly, easy going nature. I hesitate to comment too much about kid’s personalities as for the most part they’ll be different creatures in a tryout situation, what with the nerves, than during the course of a basketball season.

Scott (primary 3) The least talented of the triplets, though still pretty darn good, he seems like he’ll be well suited to these positions. Not a whole lot to comment here.

4/5
*Dante (primary 5): Again I feel like I’ve talked about him a lot. I will say that I was tempted to inquire about the soccer playing backgrounds of my players and feel particularly pleased to learn that someone I thought highly of is also a competitive soccer player as I feel good soccer players often can easily be turned into good basketball players.

Lucas (primary 5): Poor Lucas seemed somewhat surprised that I saw him as a forward/center. He seems like a real good kid. Here’s another kid who I see a fair amount of potential in and hope to see him really grow as the season progresses.

???
*David I’m not sure where to place him. I wished he had been at the 3rd day of tryouts since I think I’d have gotten a better grasp. And perhaps I am overstating his skills, but then again maybe I’m not. He’s likely going to be our point guard, because of his ball handling skills, but he could end up really at any of the positions 1-4, though realistically 4 is not likely going to be where he’d end up on offense.

I will try and post as I come up with firmer plans for things, but in all likelihood, as mentioned before, the dynasty is on a brief hiatus until practices start in October.

Tryouts

I was hoping to get this typed up before I went to tryouts today, but it was not to be. The last two days have been very informative. I really feel like good grasp of most of these kid’s skills. This is certainly a change from the first day. So that part is good. The part that is bad? Right now I have a basketball team of 9 players. I have two players on the cusp and I could end up taking one or both of them and don’t know which it’ll be.

Yesterday we did a few drills. We started with a 3 on 2, 2 on 1 weave drill. Then we went to zig-zag dribbling. They were always to use the hand they were dribbling towards, so left if going left, and right if going right. I was actually very impressed overall with how well many of these kids were able to dribble with both of their hands. However, I decided, upon further reflection, that the width we were doing was too small. We ended up repeating this today first thing so that we could use the full court before the 5th graders arrived. I was able to see a lot more distinctions when we did it tonight.

We also did several passing drills with two man teams doing a slide with chest and overhead passes, along with a jogging bounce pass back and forth. We also did a 45 second, how many 6-9 foot jump shots can you make. We ended with some 3 on 3 games. The 3 on 3 games? Disaster. I learned very little worthwhile. I feel like we did something else, but it is forgotten at this point.

Coming out of day 2 a huge burden was taken off my shoulders. All three of the H triplets were going to make the team. Brian, our friend with the broken ankle, is a fairly good guard. I really don’t like his attitude, but it is not so bad as to be a major problem. Scott seems like he’s going to be a good forward. I still have no clue where I’m going to play David, who was once again the best player on the court. I mean he’s likely the best ball handler we have, but he’s also one of the taller players, on a team that is fairly short. Anyhow, this is the sort of problem that I like to have, and I have a bit to figure things out.

Also showing real promise was Dante. He’s one of the two tallest kids out there, besides Asher (who was the kid who reminded me of me in 4th grade). Dante showed good to very good abilities to dribble, shoot, and rebound. He’s exactly the sort of center I had hoped to have: A threat (as much as any of them are) from the outside and able to handle the ball. Fits into the motion offense I expected to run.

Let me diverge from the tryouts here for a second. I went into tryouts with an open mind. I haven’t really choreographed what I expected the offense or defense to be because I wanted to see their skills first. But, as I knew the community, they were what I expected. Mostly a group of short kids. Their dribbling skills were better than I expected and their shooting about what I thought it would be. Anyhow, my plan is to spread the floor, as even tall 4th graders don’t tend to be huge, and teach them how to move without the ball in order to create inside shots. Most of these kids cannot shoot, really, beyond 12, and for many 10 foot is the outer range of where they should be shooting.

Anyhow, so Dante makes the team. Leaving the gym that night I knew that we had a team of 5:
The Hs, Dante, and Jack P. Jack P is another taller kid with good dribbling and shooting skills. He’s a step below Dante in height, and could see some limited time at Center, but will more likely be seeing time in the 3 and 4 spots.

I went home and entered the numbers for both the objective and subjective drills. Came up with a weighted and un-weighted formula to rank them with. Based on that analysis I got two more players; both surprised me at the time as they had not really made an impression, but based on observations tonight both definitely deserved it. Noah was one of them. A shooting/point guard, even possibly a small forward, he’s got a great first step for a penetrating dribble and is a very accurate lay-up shooter. The other player to make it was Jack M. Interestingly, I had a fairly hard time telling Noah and Jack apart for a bit as they both have about the same skin tone and have the same hair cut. I do think I have it down now, though. Anyhow, Jack did very well defensively and showed good ability to dribble with both hands. He’ll be a point/shooting guard for us.

That gave me 7 players who I knew would make the team. I also had ruled out two. Asher was one of them. He actually turned out to be a great rebounder, but really all the other parts of his game are just terrible. My decision was reaffirmed when I learned before tryouts tonight that he’s actually had extensive basketball training. Hence the reason why he had surprised me by knowing of the “hot shots” drill. For a kid who has had all the background he’s had, his fundamentals are just appalling. I thought he was a kid who might just need a thousand lay-ups so he could not look like an octopus when he shoots. But that likely is wrong. He just doesn’t have it. Oh well. Asher also drove me nuts since he took every opportunity he could to sit down. I asked him if he was tired, and he said no. I let him know that he shouldn’t sit down then. Anyhow Asher was out.

Also out was Matt. Matt was one of only two kids, along with Miles not to attend day 2. Matt was slow and unskilled. No real getting around it. I actually wondered if he’d even show up today. He did and my limited observations only more than confirmed what I thought.

That left 7 kids who I was undecided about:
Miles
Tom
Nick
Cameron
David R
Lucas
Gordie

Tom was a virtual lock to make the team. The real problem was that he was a noticeable step below some other kids at some important skills for both the 1 and 2 positions, which were the spots he seemed most comfortable at. He did have good hustle and a good sense of how to move on the court. Considering the offense I want to run this latter trait was what made him a virtual lock to make the team. In fact were it not for his thoroughly mediocre shooting scores I’d like have already put him on the team.

Nick was nearly put on the cut list, but I decided to leave him off. However, he did not come tonight and as such his performance did not improve, making him an easy cut. He did have fairly good defensive skills, though not substantially better than several other players. This means this postive was more than negated by his terrible offensive skills. He wasn’t a particularly great hustler either. He also sucked his shirts. I know this last thing might seem inconsequential but it was actually a fairly big minus in my book. I want my players to play fearlessly out there. That was one way I made basketball teams, because I was (and am) fearless on the court. I’m not afraid to take a charge or set a hard pick or dive for the loose ball. Anyhow, I want fearless players and a kid who sucks his shirt at age 9 is not a fearless kid..

Then there is Cameron. Cameron is a blob. He doesn’t do anything great, but he doesn’t do anything poorly either. More about Cameron later.

David R was the kid who yesterday I just loved his attitude. I continued to love his attitude. I went into tonight looking for something, anything, to justify putting him on the team.

Lucas, was a kid who I didn’t have much of a sense for. His weighted scores, which gave more weight to the objective things we’d done, were so-so.

Finally there was Gordie. Gordie showed moments of skill. However, I knew heading into the day that he’d be a borderline player, with me not wanting to take him. The reason for this was that he was CONSTANTLY not paying attention or needing me to call him over or asking him not to shoot a basket while some other kid was doing his shooting drill. Before tryouts started today the 5th/6th grade coach asked me about him. I told him that he was borderline leaning towards no. The coach explained that he knew the family well and had coached his brother on a couple of teams, and that the brother had the same personality. Good to know it runs in the family.

Miles had not impressed me during the first night’s tryout. However, he was the kid who I first met who had a good spirit. I thought that perhaps there was more that he was capable of, that I simply hadn’t seen. Before tryouts tonight I met his father. His father has an unbelievable background, having founded the 4th grade travel team, done all sorts of JCC sports, founded, and is currently president of, a small fry team. I really liked the guy. It gave me renewed hope that Miles would have more to show me.

Several players had told me they’d be a minute or two late. So when the opportunity arose with 4 of us there to play a game of knockout, I took it. I won. We then played two more games, with more kids joining in each time, which I also won. I’m sure it’ll be a big relief to you to know that I could beat a bunch of 9 year olds. The players all really enjoyed it though, which was good. I let the kids play a fourth game, which only got about ¾ finished before we started tryouts.

As I mentioned we started with full court zig-zag dribbling. After doing full court once we did to half court and back as the 5th graders were starting to trickle in. Next we played a game of “Man in the Middle”. The kids were about 10 feet apart. Person in the middle. The two people on the outside could throw chest or bounce passes to their partner while the man in the middle tried to intercept. This did not turn out nearly as well I had hoped and I ended up speeding it up, though I did get to see a couple of kids do the sort of passes I wanted to see.

My goal tonight was to focus on 6 kids who I didn’t know about. By the end of man in the middle, and based on seeing him play lightening, I knew that Miles, bless his heart, just didn’t have what it took and neither did David R. I really liked both kids, but a travel basketball team just is not the right place for them right now. In happier news, Lucas had impressed me during knockout and continued to impress me during the first few drills and moved into the likely make it category.

Next we divided into 3 teams of 4, as there were only 12 players there. Besides Nick, the H triplets were not there (which was not unexpected). I tried to put 1 center person (which ended up being Asher, Dante, and Lucas), 1 forward (Jack M, Tom, as if he could play forward his playing time would be greatly increased, and Cameron), and 2 guards. I also tried to roughly balance the teams talent wise. I also told the kids who to match up against, though I did not state what position I’d put them at.

The scrimmage proved to be quite informative, in the confirm what I already know sense. Asher, for instance, not only can’t shoot but LOVES to shoot. To the great annoyance of his team mates. Noah impressed me with his ability to penetrate. Lucas tried to play guard until I told him “if you make the team you will be at forward or center, so play there”. He didn’t like it but gave the position his best, which was nice to see. He did a nice enough job. It became clear that Tom could not play forward. That’s a shame as it greatly reduces his utility since I have enough guards, even if I use the 3 as a semi-guard, as is likely. He did, however, again show his ability to move around without the ball to great effect.

More frustrating was Gordie who proved an ability to shoot quite well and also played better defense than I’d seen previously. The kid is also short, even for this team, something I haven’t mentioned before. His annoying traits were still present, though more restrained tonight. In our later drills he would once again prove quite the adept shooter.

Cameron once again did nothing poorly, but neither nothing outstandingly well. This would be the theme with his running as well, which was our next part.

Using two groups I had them do a variety of drills which required them to run/dribble to half court, and back. Miles actually showed a surprising amount of speed, but his control was poor and his left hand weak, so no loss there. After doing the running, I immediately put them back in their three groups and had them each shoot three free throws. Cameron actually did fairly well here.

Then it was time for “half court suicides”. A suicide, for those who don’t know, is where a player runs from under the basket, to the free throw line, back to under the basket, to half court, back, to the opposite side free throw line, back, and to other the other basket and back. The drill is grueling, but is a staple of basketball training because it is good conditioning and also gives players a chance to work on change of directions, again an important skill. Anyhow, a half court versions are considerably less difficult. Of course they ended up running 4 variations which again was somewhat tiring. They did have a short break in between runs as we had two groups, but the players did tire. Then it was another three free throws. The shooting percentage, not surprisingly, dropped off for the second three. I then gave them a water break.

One important note: Dante clearly was not hustling during this. I got on him and still he did not hustle. Later I would learn there was a reasonable explanation for this.

We next did a drill where there is a player who passes in to someone who posts up. That player is being guarded. I only allowed the poster, as I called him, to take one shot. I also stated that there could be no fade aways. It was interesting seeing who turned inside, and who turned outside. The first 5 kids, meaning nearly half, turned outside, until Miles turned inside and became only the second player to actually make the basket. We ran through this twice.

Finally, we ended by doing left handed lay-ups, dribble from the right side to take a shot from about 12 feet on the left side, right handed lay-ups, and doing the jump shot with dribble from left to right.

I gathered everyone around, thanked them for another great day of try outs and explained how the team would be posted. I was asked what days practices were and I said they were currently scheduled on Mondays and Wednesdays. Dante groaned. Turns out he plays travel soccer year round and those are the days they practice and there was even some overlap in the time. This was bad news, as Dante was making the team no doubt. It means I need to talk to Emily, my Park District contact, about changing that Wednesday practice, as Mondays are the best day of the week for me scheduling wise.

Anyhow, I went home. Immediately, of the six I crossed off Miles, Matt, Nick, and David R. Tom and Lucas made the cut. That leaves me with 9 players and only Cameron and Gordie left to make a decision about. Of the two, Gordie is more talented, no doubt. But the question is: is he coachable? Then there is Cameron. His skills aren’t as present, but I know he’ll work hard. Of course he doesn’t bring anything to the team dynamic and while not being a minus is good, being a nothing, is well, nothing. And Gordie at least will have moments where he’d likely add something good.

I think in the end I’m going to take Gordie and not Cameron, though I could take both if I wanted since 11 is still manageable and gives a little more breathing room for sickness/injury. Of course, if everyone is there it makes for an incredibly awkward number to practice with. So that remains the last decision to make. I will likely make it by the time I wake up tomorrow. And truth be told it’ll likely be Gordie and not Cameron. But time will tell.