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.
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