Seth Godin recently wrote the following on his blog:
Fledgling sushi chefs spend months (sometimes years) doing nothing but making the rice for the head chef.
If the rice isn’t right, it really doesn’t matter what else you do, you’re not going to be able to serve great sushi.
Too often, we quickly jump ahead to the new thing, failing to get good enough at the important thing.
This easily applies to you as a basketball coach.
- In your rush to put in as many layers of the Read & React as possible are you sacrificing the gains your team could achieve by mastering the first few layers?
- In your practices are you pushing your players into more and more complex basketball drills when they could most benefit from more repetition?
- Do you allow your players to train far beyond their abilities when they should be focused on the fundamentals?
- Are you worried about getting to the next level before your feet are firmly planted on this level?
None of those things are inherently wrong (in fact, some might be right for your team), but next time you are working on your coaching philosophy, practice plan, or off-season workouts just ask yourself…
Do we need to make more rice?
