The other day I walked out of a talk with a few new answers and full of questions. The speaker did not tell us what to do —he just doubted out loud. I would say that’s a clear sign I had run into a good teacher. But that’s an opinion —not information.
With the least common of senses, backed by verified information, the speaker questioned the dominant model of player and team development in Catalan basketball —technique, fundamentals, basics, and so on. Here are some of the doubts he raised:
“When your junior player goes up to train with the first team, or with the higher squad, do they ask him to score 20 points? No. They ask him to kill himself defending, catch every rebound, and not lose the ball. Then why are most coaches obsessed with offensive potential?” Besides, maybe not in football, but in basketball the time spent attacking and defending is roughly 50-50.
Basketball is a game of continuous efforts. That is, you perform an action —a lay-up— and then you have to go catch the offensive rebound, get back on defense, or press the ball handler. Many drills focus on training a single effort and repeating it: we do one and either repeat it or rest —we do not chain them. In that sense, the offensive rebound is a huge advantage, but many drills end the moment there is a shot.