The Power of Listening

Episode 110 w/ JP Nerbun & 3 Summer Practice Drills

🤔 Thought Starter, Take 1
🤔 Thought Starter, Take 2
⛹️ 3 Summer Practice Drills
🎧 The Power of Listening w/ JP Nerbun
🎶 The Playlist

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🤔 Thought Starter

But do you have a leader, a coach, who can use the whole toolkit?

Using the whole toolkit is a very common problem in business. People sometimes engage in what we call “mythological learning.” The idea is simple: I’ve become successful, and as I begin to get promoted, I assume that my success is based on all the choices that I have made, rather than realizing that some of the choices I made might have led me to success in part by luck.

As a result, some of the lessons that you’ve intuited from your success might be the wrong lessons.

- Spencer Harrison, 🔗 A Lesson The Knicks Should Heed

🤔 Thought Starter, Part 2

Indiana ranked second in passes per game (330.5) this season, just behind the Golden State Warriors, another team with bits of Suns DNA in its system. In the postseason, the Pacers are first in passes per game (318.6), assists per game (27.3), and points off assists per game (70.9). Through four games of the Finals, they’re averaging 335.5 passes — over 100 more per game than the Thunder (217.8).

“If we move [the ball], that’s where the defensive mistakes happen,” said Lloyd Pierce, the Pacers’ lead assistant coach. “So if we get five [passes] on a possession, somebody’s late on the rotation, somebody’s late on a closeout, somebody is supposed to tag, and then we get a paint-to-great [shot].”

- Howard Beck, 🔗 Pacers Bring ‘Seven seconds or less’ to its final form

⛹️ 3 Summer Practice Drills

We’re in the heart of the summer season, finding a balance between introducing players to our new system and focusing on individual development.

Here are three drills from a recent practice:

2-Feet Perception Finishing

We’ve struggled at times to finish during our early summer tournaments. Some key areas of focus have been straight-line drives and attacking off two feet.

This simple drill, which goes back several years to Chris Oliver, emphasizes that. The defender dictates whether the offensive player goes right or left. There are a lot of ways to adapt this drill based on the type of finish, but the focus here was on playing off two feet and using the backboard.

3v1 Score the Screener

We constantly tell our players that setting a good screen often leads to their own scoring opportunity. This is a basic setup using a wide pin-down, where the screener always gets the shot. We encourage the screener to be creative in how they get open.

One of our emphasis points lately has been getting out of screens quickly … or ghosting them altogether to see if we can cause confusion for the defense.

5v0 > 3v2 Concept Warmup

Credit to James Anderson at Lake City High School for this one. He uses a progression of 3v0 into 2v1 and 5v0 into 3v2 as part of a “concept warmup.” We’ve been introducing “Gets” to our players, so we adapted this 5v0 sequence to start with a wide pin-down into a Get action. The screener and the receiver of the Get then transition to defense.

From there, we emphasize Push-Pull reads and shot selection. In some versions of this drill, players are only allowed to shoot threes. Kick-out 3’s are on the top level of our shot spectrum so a constraint we’ve included is that they can’t shoot until there is a paint touch after the transition to 3v2.

🎧 The Power of Listening w/ JP Nerbun

We were fortunate to welcome JP Nerbun back to the podcast for our latest episode.

This was an in-person interview recorded after a coaching seminar at Sandpoint High School in Idaho. The conversation focuses on the power of listening as a coach and explores key elements of culture development.

"If you ask a good question, you need to give them time to think about it."

JP first appeared on the podcast in June 2022 to discuss his book, The Culture System, which offers both insight and a framework for building successful team cultures.

Through TOC Culture Consulting, JP works with athletes, coaches, and parents at every level to support culture building and leadership development.

🎶 The Playlist