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Coach’s Advice

Kevin Eastman Basketball

  • Rebounding Logic - Simple truth you need to tell the players on your team who are responsible for the bulk of your rebounding: “The more you go after – the more you get.” The best rebounders are the ones that go after the most. While this sounds easy, it’s really all about habits — getting your rebounders’ mindset [...]
  • Contentment - No better feeling than that feeling of contentment. Don’t know about you, but when I get too content that’s when I get smacked in the face. It seems like life wants us to have the feeling but not live in it. Contentment in the coaching world is good in that it reminds us of a [...]
  • If it Ain’t Broke? - I know the saying goes: “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” But I actually believe when “it ain’t broke” you still have to evaluate it! I don’t think it’s best to just remain status quo because something is working well. It may be able to work better! I am not saying to change for [...]
  • Skill Development Time - I hope all of your players know that their return to school will tell us a lot about how much we can trust them! The same is true at the NBA level. Once our players come back we know almost immediately if they spent time on their game over the summer. As we like to [...]
  • Simple Question…Major Impact - This blog will be very short but has the potential to be very powerful. Here’s a challenge for you: Write down everything you would need to do or to be in order to be successful at your job. Now do those things everyday! Sometimes the best place to find the answers is inside our own [...]
  • Conviction - Learned the importance of having conviction when it comes to being a leader. This season Doc Rivers made a decision with about 40 games left in our season. He decided that we needed to be as healthy as possible if we had any chance of competing for an NBA title. So he sacrificed wins on [...]
  • Discipline the Player, Not Yourself - I heard Frank Martin (Head Coach at Kansas State) speak the other day at a clinic. He had a great point worth putting thought to. He disciplines his players at times that are important to them. Instead of running a player at 6 am, he runs them at 10 pm on a Friday or Saturday [...]

The Cross Over Movement – Basketball Development Blog by Brian McCormic

  • Game Awareness Skills, the FIBA World Championships and College Basketball Recruiting - Every August and September, college recruiting heats up, and people argue whether a player fits into one program more than another. The comment made more than any other is that a player is an “up-tempo” player and would not fit with a program that plays a slower tempo. As I listed to Fran Fraschilla’s commentary [...]
  • Zone Defense, Player Development and Summer Basketball - I think differently than most people. Sometimes, my radical viewpoint gets me in trouble. This weekend, I engaged Hoopgurlz in a discussion of zone defense via twitter because of a post it made: HG: In a game between elite athletes, we cannot be more imaginative than a zone defense? Can’t we just let the kids [...]
  • College Expansion Done Correctly - If NCAA university presidents and athletic directors in conferences like the Big 10 and Pac-10 want to expand to generate more revenue for their universities, these forward-thinking, profit-seeking presidents should go all in. Rather than mess around with realignment and some basic addition, subtraction and expansion, they should blow up the NCAA altogether and go [...]
  • U.S. Soccer Post-2010 FIFA World Cup - After so many years without media coverage, everyone, it seems, is a soccer expert in the United States media. However, in all the angst over the U.S.’s loss to Ghana, several things have been forgotten or ignored: 1) Ghana is a very good team with championship experience. Several players played on Ghana’s 2009 u20 World [...]
  • Hassan Whiteside, ADD & Basketball Performance - In the 2010 NBA Draft, Sacramento selected Marshall’s Hassan Whiteside in the second round with the 33rd pick. Early in the draft process, many pegged Whiteside as a borderline lottery pick, with one rumor suggesting that the Kings would select Whiteside with its first round pick, #5 overall. Whiteside is 7’0 tall with a ridiculous [...]
  • 2010 NBA Mock Draft - Before I begin, my explanation. This is not my guess as to what these general managers will do, but what I would do in their situations based on the information that I have. I highly value the personal interviews, and I am not there for those meetings, so I may miss on a player based [...]
  • Don Mattingly: Managerial Excellence and Experience - In today’s Los Angeles Times, Bill Plaschke criticizes the potential hire of Don Mattingly as the Los Angeles Dodgers’ manager. I do not follow baseball or the Dodgers closely, so I do not know whether Mattingly would be the best choice to succeed Joe Torre. However, Plaschke’s arguments fail. Plaschke argues that because Mattingly made [...]

Coach’s Clipboard Basketball Coaching Website and Playbook

PLAY THE RIGHT WAY

  • PRACTICE - It’s late August which means that basketball practice is right around the corner.  Schools are starting classes and individual workouts are beginning.  Rick Bonnell from Charlotte.com on Allen Iverson “How the Hell,” Iverson replied, “can I make my teammates better by practicing?” -Coach Finamore Hoops135@hotmail.com PLAY THE RIGHT WAY!
  • CHOICE, NOT CHANCE - In 2001 while working at Michigan State University with the men’s basketball program, I came across a slogan in which the women’s team at MSU was always emphasizing; Choice, Not Chance. I often think back to that great slogan and think about how true it really is, not only in basketball but in life too. [...]
  • TYSON ON HOOPS - (Final segment with Sean Tyson) What would you like to see changed in terms of the game? You are David Stern for the day. The thing I would change is the effect of cosigning.  I believe that if you work hard enough, stay dedicated consistent and loyal, you end up where you belong and needed.  Cosigning just advances [...]
  • 5 STAR BASKETBALL CAMP - Mike DeCourcy of Sporting News on the camp where a lot of guys (coaches and players) got their start. Five-Star is an instructional camp, perhaps the first to gain national acclaim for its ability to teach promising young players how to better their games. Rick Pitino and John Calipari essentially got their coaching starts at [...]
  • LARRY and MAGIC - Last night I was reading the book, ‘When March Went Mad‘, written by Seth Davis.  The book is about the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game in 1979 between Indiana State and Michigan State. Will we ever see players like Larry Bird and Magic Johnson again? Bird and Johnson were the two stars/key figures of the [...]
  • SHUTTING IT DOWN - With the start of our basketball season underway, I have decided to eliminate one of my blogs.  From now on I will only update my Coaching Blog; you will still be able to find Player Development articles and comments.  I’m in a way combining the two.  Time is valuable and writing two blogs seems to be [...]
  • HELLO SPRINGFIELD - This week Michael Jordan will be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. A few stories the next few days on MJ. Comcast SportsNet A website dedicated to Jordan with his 10 best plays of all-time.  To me, some of the plays can be debated as to which were better than others. -Coach Finamore Hoops135@hotmail.com [...]

Brian McCormick on Associated Content

  • Youth Sports: The Sampling Period -

    Young athletes progress through three general stages: Sampling (6 -12-years-old), Specializing (13-15) and Investment (16+). The sampling period is a time to play multiple sports and develop a wide base of athletic skills before specializing.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Jun 06, 2010

  • Challenges Facing the Oklahoma City Thunder -

    Spring means the NBA Play-offs, but for the majority of NBA teams without championship aspirations, spring means a time to find new talent to improve the team for next season. The quest for talent comes in two forms: players and coaches.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: May 17, 2010

  • Developing Game Awareness in Youth Basketball -

    Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code argues that skills develop; they are not innate. However, some of his arguments are explained poorly and people will justify certain approaches because of his research which is a review of the real research.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Aug 04, 2009

  • 2009 NBA Draft: Evaluating the "Real" Talent -

    Despite the number of scouts and "experts," we still misunderstand talent identification, as we ignore the important attributes which tend to lead to success and favor those physical qualities which are easy to see and measure.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Feb 26, 2009

  • Basketball Analysts' Mistakes of Certainty -

    The best writing and analysis occurs through blogs. Not every blog, of course. However, the best bloggers - guys like Kevin Pelton, Henry Abbott, Ryan McNeil, Ken Pomeroy - exceed the content and analysis of most "real" journalists and analysts.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Feb 12, 2009

  • The Problem with NBA Scouts: An Early Look at the 2009 NBA Draft -

    Drafting is an imprecise science. In the search for a star, scouts overlook the obvious by discounting production, attitude and personality and overvaluing vertical jumps, length or the way the player looks in a uniform.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Jan 08, 2009

  • Olympic Developments -

    Every four years, the United States proves its athletic superiority in the Olympic Games, dominating the medal count and reassuring the American people of our athletic prowess.

    Contributor: Brian McCormick, CSCS
    Published: Sep 05, 2008

Train for Hoops

  • Basketball Lateral Agility - I saw this picture by Charles Rex Arbogast on Sactown Royalty accompanying an article titled “DeMarcus Cousins Ain’t No Joke.” Look at the position of his body as he changes directions. When I run clinics, I emphasize this position: the foot is outside his knee and his knee is outside his hips. Look at the [...]
  • Dirk Nowitski’s Summer Training - One of the NBA’s most interesting relationships is between Dallas forward Dirk Nowitski and his long-time trainer and mentor Holger Geschwinder. Geschwinder interests me because of his unorthodox approach to training Nowitski, especially compared to the way that most U.S. basketball players train during their teenage years and in their early professional career. I have [...]
  • The Role of a Skills Trainer - On ESPN, Tim Graham writes about New England Patriots’ QB Tom Brady and his relationship with his long-time mentor Tom Martinez, the former College of San mateo Head Coach. The trainer’s role is often tricky especially as players move further along in their competitive careers. While a player moves from coach to coach as he [...]
  • Kevin Durant’s Work Ethic - ESPN’s Justin Verrier has a nice article about Kevin Durant and his mother’s influence. “When I was younger I would have good games,” Durant said. “I would come home to my friends and brag and boast, but she always told me to be humble because all the stuff could be taken away from me.” That [...]
  • Stephen Curry’s Intrinsic Motivation - The best players work the hardest. Often, we assume that means that a father, coach or trainer pushes the athlete. However, the best athletes are intrinsically motivated. They train or practice because they want to work out, not because someone forces them. “It wasn’t like I always wanted to be a pro basketball player,” Stephen [...]

Written by Editor · Published in Basketball 

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