Recorded some drills on Mondays practice

Hope you enjoyed it :-)

One season has ended and another has begun

Well, summer is getting closer and closer here in Denmark and like the preacher I`m my players get to hear about summerpractice as much as possible. I have succeded in motivating them to practice extra during the season and in a few months I will know if I have done my job in motivating them to train like a possessed bballer this summer.

I have started to record more stuff in the practices for myself, my players and for everybody else that loves this beautiful game. Maybe it can help somebody, inspirere somebody how to do or not to do it, no matter what its there for all that have love for the game.

I have put up to short videos so far and here they are:
They haven`t been edited so you see good things and bad things and I added music so you dont have to listen to my voice screamning No, YES, athletic position and so on hehe :-)




I have a quest this summer and that is to record many, many drills and workouts with players and put them on the net. If I can fullfill my quest, well we will see in time.
Until then you have 2 videos here atleast.

Basketball is the same or?

Basketball is the same all over the world and at the same time it aint. Different cultures, rules, levels make the differences that sometimes is quite crazy.

Read this great article about a american player, who is playing in south korea and yes the ball is the same size, basket at the same height......but its a different, very different basketball life.

Read the article here from www.hoopshype.com!

Become your own best coach

Thats the title of a great book from former swedish golfcaptain Pia Nilsson that I read many years ago.

Its written in swedish and I dont know if there is a english version, but its a great read about awareness in your training and being able to correct yourself into greatness. In simple words how to become your own coach and together with a coach and your own coachskills to make yourself better, I say watch out!

Another sport that are great in using the athleets in getting better is track and field. The older kids help and teach tthe younger ones, the groups are often of skill and not age. They have a coach, but the coach eachother to become as good as the can of course with a coach, but its better with 12 coaches than one.

Of course if they teach the right things, but that why the expereinced coach is there to deliever the goods for them to learn with the help of eachother.

I try to use that thinking in basketball, where I want my players to correct, teach, help their teammates in practise and in games. I have done this for many years and when you get it going it makes your job as a coach so much easier.

A bonus of this a discovered during the years is that many of my players go and ask the clubs by themselfs if they can become a ass coach with some young team.

I have never told my players you should become coaches, I think their focus should be on playing basketball. So in that way I have not done what all clubs I have been in have told me to do. "Its important they become coaches, referees, other stuff in club" I have always thought there is a time for everthing and their goals to become a great players shouldn`t be stopped by them beeing a ass coach and they lose 4 hours a week where they could rest, practise, study.

Still most of my players have later on become coaches, you dont tell kids what to become, you guide them, give them tools and then they can choose what to do with the tools you give them.

Let kids be kids and dont let the clubs bad recruitment in new coaches be the reason why you kids become coaches, they should become it because they want to do it. Not because the clubs says you should do it.

So if I as a coach give them a tools in how to teach to others, how to solve a problem, how to talk to different people, the understanding that if my teammate becomes better I become better mentality.

The odds are very high in favor of many becoming coaches at least for some years, to be a coach formany years you have to be a little bit insain :-)

A great friday

Had a meeting on the afternoon and after that I went to a gym nearby to have a induvidual workout with a player born 1995, it was the first of several workouts we will have to get him ready for the nationalteam tryouts.

We went for almost an hour which was a little bit to long, but I needed to see certain things in the first workout to be able to plan the others.

He did well and has the heart and inteligens to learn and learn quickly, so thats great since there are lots of small details that he lacks to do certain things very well.

And thats a general problem with players. Many have to skills but they are not polished to their maximum and so they cant get nothing out of them in games.
It could be that they have a perfect crossover, but dotn have the perfect footwork to use with the perfect crossover.

It could be that they have a very quick first step, but they cant use it since they dont bend their legs or once again have the proper footwork to explode past defenders.

It could be they have a great shot, but when they move to shot the ball they almost never score the shots, but standing still...spooting up they are fine.

Maybe they only can use the cross step when they attack, so they can only attack one side of their defender...

The list goes on....but thats where individual traning (WITH CORRECTIONS) is so important with a coach that sees the problem and find some solution to fix it.

The list goes on and on....

Directly after that practise I hade teampratise with my boys98 and we had a great practise getting some teamaspects of the game in place. Adding some tools to their toolbox.....

Directly after that is was time for my new team in boys 93/94 and since it was my second practise witht hem, we have lots of stuff to memorize and put in their toolboxes. It went well and I`m looking forward to next practise.

Now sleep, sleep and sleep :-)

A blast from the past

Like I wrote in the last entry soon time for Lundaspelen and during the years it has given me lots of memories both bad, god and funny and sad.

I especially remember some things and here is one of them;
Its goes back to when I myself was playing for boys 77 of Lobas and in our first game that year, we where gonna play against a team from Latvia or Russia I cant remember the country or club, but this I remember.

We stod waiting to get out on floor and we saw the team we where gonna play against. They stod there in old jersyes and old old basketballshoes, do you remember these shoes?















But most of them didn`t have converse it was some other sheap brand and of course spoiled as we where we had our expensive shoes and "new" jerseys and shooting shirts.
We we entered the court we got our next chock they really smelled bad, like they hadn`t showered for days, weeks. But I could see that they where good players its pretty easy to see that in the warmups if you look for the right things.

Just before the game would start they came over to our bench with a pin for each one of us and we also got a thing representing their club. I remember how ashamed I felt, really much, there we where expensive shoes, clothes, from a rich country and they where giving us stuff.

Needless to say they absolutely killed us in the game and won by many many points after they game there was a new kind of respect and our hip expensive shoes didn`t mean a thing at that moment. But it was a wake up call I think to many of us to whats important and whats secondary for playing the greatest game in the world.

The only thing that we still can say is even after they hammered us and taught us a lesson in Bball. New respect was there, but I still I felt sorry for the next team playing them cause I think they used chemical warfair as a secret weapon, my good they smelled :-)

Happy New Year!

New Year Basketball

In the beginning of the new year for me as a bball lover from the south of Sweden its been a tradition for years to play or coach in Lundaspelen, which is one of the biggest youth tournaments in the world.

Its been called the danish championships since so many danish teams participate and many of them also win the tournament. Now I´m a swede living and coaching in Denmark, so I guess I will for the first time play the danish champioships.

Well, I coach boys 98 and we have 18 players and will play this year with two even teams, so this year its more learning to play tournaments and having a good time. We where one of the lucky ones invited to play the nordic champioships in Sødertælje in easter and thats great since all games will be very giving in educational value.e

Lundaspelen is to me winter, cold and great atmosphere in the playoffs. Especially of course in the finals where every year its a great setup and arrangement to get that exciting feeling in your body.
This year will for sure be winter, cold and also great atmosphere in the playoffs.

I hope that my 2 teams play as well as they can and learn a lot by playing and watching others play. Myself I hope also to see some great games, where I can enjoy great coaching and great players.

You can check out the tournament here LUNDASPELEN 2-5 January every year

I also hope to see and talk to old friends/players and coaches during the tournament and for the first time in 4 years I will not work in Lundaspelen as I did when I coached in Eos. To be honest thats very nice to be just a coach and basketball lover again.

But to the people behind a tournament like this I have nothing but the deepest respect since, I know how much work it is to make it this big and all the organazing to get all parts to go as planned.

And to my old players working their ass of in Lundaspelen next year, what are you complaining about!
haha :-) Feels good to be able to say that :-)

Small pieces of my history

Well, back to my hometown I couldn`t let that opertunity go wasted without getting some past memories on pictures for future lonely days to take a look back at and remember good and bad times.

As a little kid most parts of my life was already then sports I lived on the right in the picture and its was a big backyard with lots of kids living in the area.

Our backyard since it was the biggest of the housing complex in that area became the place to be. Every night and every day when we kids was free from school there was soccergames, wargames, tag or something else happening. We didn`t sit in our apartments very much it was always some activity going on.

My best friend at the time lived in the same building but to the left in the picture and we both played soccer in the local club and both of us ended up in Lobas Basketball club playing bball every day, every week for many years.

My first school was Karstorp south and my passion for basketball wasn`t yet born. 

On schoolbreaks it was soccer or hockey with plastic sticks (yes I´m not proud if it) or some other crazy activity.

In winter breaks it was "toughest on the hill" or last man/women standing, there was a small hill behind the school and to be superior you should be the only one standing on the top of the hill.

Its was fun until a new girl came and beat all of us boys :-)

After karstorp south where I went to grade 1,2,3 it was time for its bigger brother in Karstorps North 

and grade 4,5,6 and here my passion for basketball was born. The founder of Lobas Basketball was one of the gymteachers on that school, but before I got him I had a women that nearly destroyd my passion for sports. The only thing she liked was gymnastics, dancing and always had some stupid earcovers on her head. She couldn`t have liked her job it was clear.

She taught us that in Basketball you could take 3 steps just like in handball and when Jørgen Freiburghaus took over in the 5th grade he became 10 years older directly.

This gym was and still are my favourite gym for basketball and allthought its small it has lots of baskets and is perfect for teaching the foundamentals of the game.

My first basketball game was played here and it was a schoolgame between the classes on the school it felt very big then, but now you wonder how we could play on 4 courts at the same time :-)


Outside my classroom we hade this streetcourt and since most of us played basketball it was easy choice in breaks what was gonna happen.

Shooting around the clock or playing games or dribbling between the legs around the 400m track.

One in my team was the best until a girl came and beat us all and yes it was the same girl that was queen of the hill :-)

I remember sometimes (many times( we where a little bit late since we didn`t wanna stop dribbling or shooting or end the game without a winner. Good times!

After some years we moved from apartment to a house pretty close to where we lived before.

The house didn`t look exactly like this back then it was red and old, but the new owners made it very beautiful.

Basketball and tennis and for some strange reason skateboard was the big interests at this time. But skateboardning disapeared quickly from my life since a really sucked at it.

Time for grade 7,8,9 and new school once again in Pilang. The school has grown during the years and most of what you see in the picture wasn`t their back then and today its from younger grades also and much, much bigger.I got a new gymteacher and he is propably one of the best leaders I have had during the years and he had simple aproach to all the boring stuff in gymhour, do what you can do, try what you cant do and then do sometiing you wanna do. I shot a lot of freethrows :-)

Back then the "rule" in Lobas was the older you got, the more practises you got in the big gym Pilængshallen which was huge (thats what we thought back then).

I`m propably one of the people who has spent most hours in that gym after Jørgen Freiburghaus during my years as a player and coach. In summertime a had keys to open and shut the gym, so me and fellow basketball lovers Ted Cedermarker and Rickard Nilsson hooked up the stereo many many times and played 1vs1 and shot huge amonts of shots it was no accident that a was a really good shooter and yes I`m proud of that atleast I was good at one thing :-)




We moved from our house to a apartment close to the beach and here I spent my highschool years and by now basketball was if not 100% of my life at least 99%.

I went to Malmø Basketball Highschool, but it wasn´t for me at all I knew to much of the game already (how you should practise) and I ended it after one year.


When I was ready to leave the nest I bought a apartment in Lomma acutally the apartment that was responsible for me finding the greatest game in the world watching super channel at my great grandmother apartment and I bought it from her, when she got to old to live by herself.

This place was freedom and my basketball headquarters for some years before I left my hometown for other basketball adventures.

Lomma will always be in my heart and also Lobas Basketball Club allthought for many years I felt mostly hate after being treated very badly, by people without a clue about sports or basketball.

Any coach out there who recognize that haha, well I know we are many and I think its a shame that clubs dont treat there coaches better and at least try to be honest with their coaches.
Lying and misstreating coaches always bites you in the ass in the end and those wounds will maybe never heal. To be honest is the one of the few things that doesn`t cost anything and at the top of my life rules.

This was some history.....maybe not interesting for you, but for me and thats whats counts since its my blogg :-)

A great basketballsite for those who wanna learn

The Cross Over Movement
I have been following this site for several years and there are a lot of great stuff that gets you brain working.

The picture above is linked to a article about talent identification, enjoy your reading.

Becoming a basketballcoach " Developing basketballplayers instead of teamplayers"

Maybe it sounds strange and too some it just crazy. At least thats how I guess some see it, when they only practise teamskills.

When you coach young players no matter if they play senior basketball or not, maybe a pure youth team or one 17 years old player at the seniorlevel, you have responsability to these young players to give them the tools to be the best they can be.

And as a new coach starting out its almost impossible withoput guidence and knowing what is needed. I have seen so many young players reach the seniorlevel very early since they hade talent, but once there almost all technical training stopped and development of the player only improves in areas like experience and playing fot the best of the team, sometimes also phsyicality they improve allthough veru rare in Scandinavia.

What do I then mean with the headline?
I have preached about developing individual players with understanding for teamplay and not teamplayers with a understanding for indivdual players.
YES, you will propably not win as much as the coach that is going for developing teamplayers, with tons of tactical stuff in eearly years, but you will win further on if you keep up the individual focus in practises.

YES, it will take a longer time for your team to play good basketball and get easy scores.

YES, it will be frustrating when you are playing that X and O`s coach who uses setplays with 3 backscreens and pick and roll in a very early age, but your reward will come, it just comes many years later.

I big issue for me is making the players think the game and of course then also understand the game. So my first offense is always a motion offense that I have used for many many years now. There are some rules in my motion offense, but it allows the players to create of the dribble, create from cuts, create from inside/outside game, using screens and I could just write all aspects of the game. Set plays will not do that, they give the player i solution and if that solution is denied by the defense, houston we have a problem!

If the player hasn`t learned the game before to advanced setplays, the will be very static and do many more turnovers and the offense will become like a traffic stop in Stockholm. Moving slowly, sometimes very fast, and if you are lucky you get a opening.

Back to the motion:

I use 9 positions in offense (corners, wings, point, lowposts, highposts)

The outsiderules are:
- If you cut to the basket you always cut to the weakside
- If you cut from the weakside, you continue to the strongside
- If you pass the lowpost you screen away

Insiderules are (there is no static center, but a insideposition)
- This players is the only ine who cans creen the ball
- If insideplayer moves outside with a cut, screen or spacning, he/she comes back in with a screen, cut:

Everytime a players comes to a new position hes/she has 2-3 seconds to make the best choice possible.

The best choice will always be:
Screen, cut or spacing (taking a new position without cutting to the basket)
One of these will always be the worts solution, but still it will not destroy the offense, like if somebody moveds the wrong way in a setplay.

How does offense start?
It can start in several different ways

In fastbreak
- PG`s can dribble the ball side, middle, diagonal to get the ball in play.
- They can fo course pass up the court also.

Halfcourt game:
- PG`s can dribble the ball to the wing
- PG can pass it and follow for handoff
- PG can start with dribble handoff
- PG can of course as most of the times just pass it to the wing.
- PG can call for wing players for a handoff at point.
- Insideplayer can come up and play pick and roll at the point to start the offense

Keys for developing a sound offense for youth as I see it are:
- Reduce dribbling, so its only used when neede
- Spacing, the most important as I see it
- Moving without the ball
- Reading and reacting or as some say act dont react (to me its the same thing, since you have to react, to act)
- Balltempo
- Creating one on one situations for the players

As the players get older screens become more and more common and learning the read the defense in screening situations is very important, but often forgotten, since its not needed so much in ages 0-16, if you set a screen it works many times without reading.

Once you get older the defense will have solutions fot that backscreen, donwscreen, staggered screen and now the players must be able to read the play and most cant, so they end up in the bench.

As a youth coach I think in the early years you should focus on spacing, moving without the ball and attacking from dribble or from basketballposition.

Note:
Attacking from the dribble doesn`t mean that every player who gest the ball, should dribble just because he can. I saw a game som days ago, where every players dribble the ball as soon as the got it in perhaps 80% of their offenses. It was TO´s heaven if there is such a place......and defense had a blast just standing and watching until they got the ball from a steal or a very bad shot.

Most new coaches have a superoffense that they saw at some seniorlevel or a offense they played themselves that they will start with and they see it work, so they dont see the problems with doing it.

They will to WIN makes us coaches do smart things but also very STUPID things and as have written many times as new coach you need someone to help you with experience so you get on the right track from the start.

There is that classic KISS
K= Keep I= It S= Simply S=Stupid and that a great law to follow in the begining of coaching.

But 95% will not if somebody doesn`t guide them.



Practises will be run from their setplays and they will become god at running THOOSE offenses, but do theese offenses really have all aspects of the game in them, well dont think so.

Coaches of seniorteams in clubs should be much more activ in getting the clubs youth coaches t do the right thing, since they need god players it should be a big priority, but moste times its not and that can only mean one of the following things:

- The coach doesn`t know what is needed, his team is doing OK and the players coming up is OK, so verything is OK......NOT! They should be the best they can be!

(If a club doesn`t have a skillplan for the players, HC`s need to act on it)

- The coach is just waiting for a new opertunity someother place

- The club doesn`t want him/her messing with the coaches, NO green light.

- He is afraid of conflicts with other coaches

- He is a seniorcoach, a maintainer, good with words and motivating players but knows very little of how to develop players. The same coach just plays 5-5, shoots freethrows, and shoots 2 and 2 even if he had 10 year olds as he would with seniorteam, maybe som waeve and some layups also :-)

In best cases technical drills without instructions and corrections.

Next chapter will be Developing basketballplayers


Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Empty book"

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Doing wrong when doing right"

Chapter 3 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Will to win is to loud, the kids cant hear you"

Chapter 4 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Dealing with parents and players as a new coach"

Chapter 5 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Yearly plan and practiseplans, what to do"

Today I did some tests on my players

As some of you already know I coach a team boys born 1998 in Hørsholm Basketball in Denmark.
Today we did the first test for this season. Of course most of the are "happytests" since they are still growing and their bodies are devoloping in different speeds and so on, but the tests will act at this age more as a tool to motivate and "give" selfconfidence, because they will do better next time.

This is the first time ever I have done this with a young team like this, but to be honest this is the only team in this age that I have coached that have the mindset, so they can use this for their benefit.

First I checked "antro"

A)
- Height
- Wingspan
- Reach

Then physical tests
B)
- Jumping ability (best of two tries)
- 10 meters run from basketballposition (best of two tries)
- 20 meters run from basketballposition (best of two tries)
- Standing longjump (best of two tries)
- Pushups in one minute (chest touches fist of coach)
- Situps in one minute
(Hands on head, elbows touches knees, 90 degrees against the wall.)

And also som basketballtest
C)
- Freethrows - How many made of 25
(Shoots all 25 in a row)
- 2 pointers, 50 shoots (10 from each position) from side left, side right, bankshot left, bankshot right, freethrow line
(shot from pass, players shoots all 50 shoots in a row)
- 3 pointers, 25 shoots 
(5 from each position), corner, corner, wing, wing and point (all shoots in a row)
- Layups in 30 seconds
(One player is standing at the freethrowline, one players with ball, dribbles scores right laup, dribbles out with left hand around his friend, scores lefthanded layup, dribbles out with right hand around his friend and so on for 30 seconds)

To be honest most players are not ready to shoot 3 pointers, but the will be in May, so it will be success then :-)

Becoming a basketballcoach Chapter 5: Yearly plan and practise plans, what to do?

Most coaches in the world dont have the luxury to be employed and have a lot of time to prepare the season for the team and thats just a fact. For e new coach its even harder if he/she has nobody to turn to for inspiration and guidance on WHAT to do, WHEN and HOW to do it.

Often when you are a new coach you do a lot of drills in your practises and if you just asked yourself the BIG question WHY I´m I doing this drill, many of the drills would never been used by you since there should always be a reason why you use certain drills and their purpose should go hand in hand with you yearly plan and ages of your players. Ask the question!

Myself I think many coaches try to do too much with the yearly/weekly plans, and to much means that most will not be done. Instead I think especially as a new coach, you should follow a general rule in all areas of basketball and that is "as simple as possible" and do it 100% instead of 60-70% with championship papermateral with 34 pages and 56 diagrams, you see where I`m going with this.

Here is something from my early years;
I was told to take over a boys team and I had seen very little of the team, but my brain started to work overtime directly and a mad great plans for the team, almost made a little book with all the things we where gonna use/do and so on with the team.
I spent hours on this and was extremelly satisfied with my work, I think this was like my third year as a coach or something.
Satisfied with my work I went to first practise with the team and had my great "books" with me in my bag. After some minutes of the first practise, my "great" work was just a waste of time, they wasn`t even near the level I had made them up to be on the paper.........after the practise I threw all of the "books" in the garbage I had done to much and I´m very glad that I realized this is not for them, but here I think most coaches go ahead anyway and that shouldn`t be possible since all clubs should have somebody in charge of the quality of coaches and the teams educational plans for the players.

I have since some years ago myself started working from monthly plans that has general skills on what we will work on with the team, within that general skill, the drills can very and be stationary, to halfcourt, to fullcourt drills of course.

It could look like this:

September                              October                                                              

- Phys (MAQ, footwork)          - Phys (MAQ, footwork)                   

- Offense (1-0, 2-0,3-0)          - Offense (1-0,2-0, 3-0)                

- Defense (on ball, off ball)      - Indi skills (Basketball position)                    
- Teambuilding                       - Defense (on ball, off ball)                                

- Games (1vs1, 2-1, 3-2)       - Games  (1vs1, 2-2, 3-3)                  

* Indi skills= All offense skills done from basketball position.  
* MAQ = Muscle Action Quality my teams physical program (3 times a week with boys 98)

Here you can se the complete yearly plan for my boys born 98 season 2010/2011 (Its in swedish, but if you know that fys= physical, and Spel= games, you will understand)

Some coaches like to time everything in practises, how do you do it?

With a yearly plan like this in place its so much easier to plan the practises and so much easier to stop yourself from cheating in the educational plan for the kids. On educations sometimes this kind of yearly plans and other paperstuff becomes to much for many since its on the level of coaches with one job and that is to coach one or two teams as a profesional and that is not a reality for most living basketball addicts.

I have help many new coaches during the years with this kind of stuff and if you have any questions or need som help in any way just write me and if I can I will help you.

There are many books on the market wich say they can help you as a new coach, but most of them is really just there to make somebody rich and no matter how great they are if you dont have the skills to teach, they wont help much anyways.

Next chapter will be :  
Becoming a basketballcoach " Developing basketballplayers instead of teamplayers"

Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Empty book"

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Doing wrong when doing right"

Chapter 3 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Will to win is to loud, the kids cant hear you"

Chapter 4 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Dealing with parents and players as a new coach"

To dribble or not to dribble, that is the question!?

Well folks, I had a game tonight with my boys team born 98 and we played one of the best teams in denmark in SISU and I`m very happy to be able to say that the things we are working on in practise is getting better and better. It was a vene game where we came out as winners with 58-55 after trailing with 9 points in the last quarter. We finished really strong the last couple of minutes...

Whats "funny" is that we in the 3 period let SISU take a 10 point lead just because we were dribbling the ball so much and we became a one man dribbling show with 4 guys standing and watching. Thats som kind of NBA sickness that is well spred on every level. It doesn`t matter what level you play, when you overdribble the ball you will become very static and easy to defend.

What I`m very happy about is that we came back to playing basketball after that period and moved the ball very well and of course got easier scores and most of all better chances to score.

The strange thing with the dribble is that you see this happening on every level and why I call it NBA sickness is because there you can do it much more and still have success with since you are not allowed to play real helpdefense. You just have to wait out the help to leave the 3 second area and explode to the basket.

LBJ "overdribbling" will not win the NBA

Today was a good day, not because we won (sure helps), but because we did so many right things in this game, so we can go back to practise and continue learning the game, the best game in the world.

What game?

BASKETBALL

Charlie Burgess from Bakken Bears

I have so far during the season watched a lot of games from the danish league and I`m surprised so far how bad some of the importplayers are and even more suprised that mnay of them has played in other teams in denmark before, that means that the coaches/clubs knew what the went for. I simply dont understand.....money, no dont come with that excuse, its not about that its about contacts and good recruiting job to find the really good players.

Was nice to see Bakken bears Charlie Burgess, thats a classplayer and used to right way he would score even more points for his team. Yes, now I`m coaching from the sofa of my apartment, but it doesn`t take a Einstein to see that he is one of, if not the best 1 vs 1 player in the danish league, so simply more 1 vs 1 situation out of a team concept...not NBA style everybody stands and looks at the player witht he ball.

3-4-5 passes with ballmovement from one side to the other and him with the ball...BOOM! score, assist or foul. Would love to coach a player like that, makes the game so simply.

Video is from when he played in finland.

Wednesday night special

Wednesday nights are special nights for me since our ladies team headcoach Johan Enbom has very early morning practise on thursdays, so he sleeps in my apartment. Two coaches in a 2 room apartment that means a lot of basketballtalk.

Last night I had a pretty bad fever so I told JE that I will not be so social and propably sleep when he arrives, but that didn`t happen. Somehow I managed to stay awake and we talk and talk......
I found this funny picture about comunication. Where are back to tappin again :-)

Why I`m I charing this with you?

Well, a big part of development as a coach is to talk basketball with different people and everybody no matter what level you coach at needs somebody to exchange thoughts with or you will get stuck in a certain mindset.

I always found that the thing that gave med the most at basketball educations from the federation was the talks before and after with the other coaches. So many different minds, ages and levels, thats some great talks and you go to bed at night with new thoughts.

One of the subjects we talked about is that clubs and coaches needs to get in a mindset to develop players for the highest european levels and not be satisfied with winning the nationals or some tournament.
The belief has to be there among the coaches for it to succeed and the clubs needs to have a mindset to wanna or at least have the ambition to play as much as possible against other top european teams.

My mindset is I`m a coach in Hørsholm Basketball, but I coach for the danish federation and their nationalteams. Thats my highest goals to develop players for the nationalteams and I think at least with that mindset you will try to the best of your possibilities to make your players ready for Europe and not the national competition.

Behind this mindset there is of course the most important thing and thats the players and nomatter what ambition they have I will do my best to teach them as players and humans and support them as long as the show up for practises and do their best.

I heard a great coach once say "There is only one stupid players and thats the one which doesn`t wanna learn anything new" and I have tried to live by that since.

In the nordic countries we cant be so selectiv that you can be in other more basketballcountries, we have to have everybody along for the ride, maybe not in the same team, but the has to be a place for everyone.
I think thats great, but of course it makes the demands on coaches abilitys much higher, since you can not only focus on the best players at the time.
Thats also something to think about, many players/athleets develops late and maybe, maybe you just cut the next Michael Jordan from your team at the age of 12.

Congratulations!

Swedish womensleague game LIVE tonight

Swedish basketballtelevison airs the game between Solna Vikings and Norrkoping Dolphins, this sis a game between first pace and secondplaced Norrkoping.

Watch it here starts 19:00 CET

What has Iron Man to do with basketball?

Well, at first of course nothing but when you start to look into it, you will find lots of common stuff. Tonight I will have the pleasure of listening to Torbjørn Sindballe a double world champion in Iron Man competition I tell you thats one tought son of b*tch.

One of the things that we can learn of the non teamsports is their mental toughness and how they dont blame other for failure.Normally the non teamsports athleets have much better selfawarness and mentally they are stronger. The have like I wrote no one else the blame, so the better be prepaired.

Another thing is that they often take much more responsability in their own training, if they dont train the will fail, they have nobody to hide behind or to change with on a bad day.

Hopefully most of our 50 coaches in the club will come and listen tonight.

That winning feeling

...well had a game today with my boys 98 and as "usual" we where gonna play a team with just 97 born players and if you ever coached this ages, you now how huge the pshysical differences are in just this age. Just one year is a huge difference.

We have had really good pratices last 2 weeks and ( Coach Enbom has written a blog about quality practises ) and I have added some pieces to their toolbox. Just before our game the mens team had practise and I think my kids impressed som of them since they stayed for awhile and watched.

We played really adult i offense moving the ball very well and attacking and shooting at the right times. Sometimes we drop a little in balltempo, but since we play without any screens at all, this is not so strange. I have nothing against screens, I love screens....but I want them to learn movement without the ball and spacing and more before we go to any screens in our offense.

Biggest problem in the game is that the other team zagg off our players and they are most of them much taller and we get "confused" in shootselections since we are open on every ballcatch. We had som bad shoots, but like I wrote before we played adult and smart.

Defense is extremelly hard since we are so much smaller, but today we played much tougher, but boxing out is a problem when there is 1 year, 20kg and 30cm height difference :-) But, they tried....

This was our first win against a 97 team and we had the shivers in the last minutes and they came closer and closer, but you have to get used to winning to be able to handle the "pressure" in the end off games.

We won today with 3points and believe me if we played like we did today and lost I would smile all the way home anyway. Now I got double joy since we played well and won also......can`t wait until next practise.

Chapter 4: Dealing with players and parents as a new coach

This is a chapter that I propably could write on and on and on about, but I will try to get just some of the essentials into this text.

Dealing with parents
First of all starting out as a new coach there are many things that is hard in the beginning until you get a way of dealing with the certain situations. Some you make rules for, some you hand out info to parents and players, so no questions need to be asked later on. The problem is no matter how great you are at writting down rules, instructions and more, there will always be questions and inputs from players and parents.

This are the situations that are very hard as a new coach since, now its not a pen and a piece of papper but LIVE IRL in real life communication. Communication is the key, but  is also normally something you get better at by experience and age.
When I started out I was lucky I had great parents in my first team and they where supporters and not assistent coaches. I mean with that they let me coach and them being supporters and transportation organizers and more.

If you are unlucky you get  a lot of "assistent coaches" and of course they know everything since they played sports 10-15 years ago. Clubs need to help new coaches being organized to deal with parents its not always very easy. And its so important since all clubs in at least the nordic countries needs parents to be involved.

Normally the parents that have some sportsbackground maybe in the heat of moment dont understand, but when they calm down the realize it.

The hardest parents as I see to deal with as a new coach is the parents without any sports background and still they have 1000 opinions about most things you do with the team, all from practise, to games, playing time is normally a big factor for them........and for some reason moste of these non sport parents all seem to think a like. Everything should be fair, equal, but sport isn`t like that and I tell you after 33 years in life, life is not equal or fair but there is for some reasons thoughts of that utopia.

Well, to me sports are very "fair, equal", but you dont get it for free or easy, you will have to fight, sweat, cry, have pain, bleed, to do what you wanna do. This is something you have with you whenever in life and to me (us) that have great sport passion this is obvious, but you need to realize as a new coach, that the non sport parents dont see it as this. They haven`t lived it, so to them its a alien thing.....

One last thing about parents adn of course like I started with I could write page after page after page, but the last thing about parents is something that is a problem every year since I started coaching 17 years ago.

Parents priorities dont always go hand and hand with the players/kids
Well, this could go in either way....the parents want their kid to be great and basketball, but the kids doesn´t he just likes basketball.
But I will write from the point that the kid wants to be great. Parents need to sit down and talk with their kid about there basketball playing and how importants its for the kid. Just as coaches need individual talks parents need to talk to their kids. I have seen so many kids torn up because the parents just dont have any respect for their kids playing sports. They just plan totally egoistic there travelling or visits or shopping when their kids has a game or tournament.
Well, you might say they are the parents the decide and thats totally right. But a kid is just a kid one time and there are 365 days in a year. There are "babysitters", friends of family and so in, maybe he doesn´t need to go with the parents.

So this is something that needs to be communicated to the parents and thats not easy for a new coach I promise you that.

One tip!
For all new coaches or experienced coaches find the parent that 90% respects and listens too, every team has one. Try to get him/her as teamleader organizing the parents its great if this parents has sports background also, then he will get many questions from the other parents and answer them so you will not even hear the questions.

Today there is a "new" problem to deal with known as "curling parents". It aint new, but the % of a teams parents that are "curling" are so much higher more on that in another chapter.


Dealing with players
Handling players as new coach is just as hard as handling parents and maybe harder in way since you meet the players a lot more often.

I have always actually worked from a big point in my philosphy and that is dont LIE to the kids. I totally hate, when coaches sugercoat what they say or totally flat out just LIE, to avoid the conflict with the kid/parents.

But here is the thing as a new coach its very hard to get your point out without saying the wrong thing or not getting the players to understand what you mean and he/she takes it very very hard, since they didn` t really understood what you said.

Players will always gain more and be tougher athletes if you are honest with them and to me this is a big thing. I have during the years heard so many lies at every level of the game and to me thats just messed up.  

HOW, do you look yourself int he mirror at night?

Well maybe they dont have a mirror :-)

As soon as you can have short minitalks with the players and times when you have the possibility. It doesn`t have to be this superorganized indiviueal talks with charts, and more. Just, get talking with the players before, after practises during breaks in practises, during a drill take som time ask some questions and more. The tip here is use the time you have, its easy to be to ambitous and fail beacuse lack of time since work, school. Do it in the time you already have booked for that team and do it great instead of 50% of what it could have been.

Attitude problem players is something that needs to be adressed directly one way or the other this needs to change or there will problems for the whole team further on. Many hours may be spent to get that kid on the right track, remember bad attitude directed in the right direction will be fuel instead of shit in the system. Thats where you as a coach come in, to guide this "bad kid" they right way and as a new coach this is extremelly hard, especially since often the kids with bad attitude is one or the best player on the team. And if that problem isnt handled it can stop his/hers chances to become  what he/she could have become.

If new and unexperienced coaches are put on team, the club needs to have somebody responsable to deal with these kinds of problems, if not well then you really dont care about the kids.

Well I will stop here and propably come back to this huge subject at a later stage.

Next chapter 5 will be about: Yearly plan and practise plans, what to do?

Chapter 1 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Empty book"

Chapter 2 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Doing wrong when doing right"

Chapter 3 - Becoming a basketballcoach "Will to win is to loud, the kids cant hear you"