I happened to watch NBA Access today with Ahmad Rashad and they had a segment on the Fort Wayne Mad Ants in the NBDL. They had an interview with their head coach, Kent Davison and he said that he wanted his players to do what they do best. If you're a penetrator, penetrate. If you're a shooter, then hit your shots more than you will miss them. If you are a defenseive stopper, then 
I better not see the guy you're guarding get an easy, uncontested shot off. I see players all the time who are playing outside of their ability level. I do understand that if you don't have a point guard that can handle the ball, then someone will have to fill that role, but if you aren't a shooter, then why are shooting? When looking at what Coach Sfera has posted on the Powerbox Basketball Blog about the Butler Way I was intrigued that it included "Accepting Reality" as a part of the Way. But really digging deeper, I interpret that to mean that you can only do what you are capable of at that moment in time. You can't pretend to be someone else if you don't have the skills. But, and it's a big but, you can take the steps to eventually acquire the skills to do something that you couldn't do before. These skills that I am talking about are skills that you need to develop on your own, in your driveway, by yourself or possibly with a buddy. You can't acquire these skills simply by playing games. You don't become a good shooter in games without working on your shooting with no one in the stands. And you definitely can't become a good ballhandler by just playing games, it takes initiative, drive, and a commitment to get better every day. If you think about it, if you don't get better on your own, and just play games, and everyone else does the exact same thing, then no one is getting any better than you were the year before, you have the exact same repertoire of moves that you had last year. I have seen kids in the 8th grade be very good and not get any better by the time they graduate because they thought they were good enough and didn't have to work hard. And when you don't progress you stay at that 8th Grade good enough level even when they are a senior in high school and you can already guess how much playing time that he got his senior year.
I better not see the guy you're guarding get an easy, uncontested shot off. I see players all the time who are playing outside of their ability level. I do understand that if you don't have a point guard that can handle the ball, then someone will have to fill that role, but if you aren't a shooter, then why are shooting? When looking at what Coach Sfera has posted on the Powerbox Basketball Blog about the Butler Way I was intrigued that it included "Accepting Reality" as a part of the Way. But really digging deeper, I interpret that to mean that you can only do what you are capable of at that moment in time. You can't pretend to be someone else if you don't have the skills. But, and it's a big but, you can take the steps to eventually acquire the skills to do something that you couldn't do before. These skills that I am talking about are skills that you need to develop on your own, in your driveway, by yourself or possibly with a buddy. You can't acquire these skills simply by playing games. You don't become a good shooter in games without working on your shooting with no one in the stands. And you definitely can't become a good ballhandler by just playing games, it takes initiative, drive, and a commitment to get better every day. If you think about it, if you don't get better on your own, and just play games, and everyone else does the exact same thing, then no one is getting any better than you were the year before, you have the exact same repertoire of moves that you had last year. I have seen kids in the 8th grade be very good and not get any better by the time they graduate because they thought they were good enough and didn't have to work hard. And when you don't progress you stay at that 8th Grade good enough level even when they are a senior in high school and you can already guess how much playing time that he got his senior year. There are three players from Indiana colleges playing for the Mad Ants this year -
Have a good weekend and thanks for reading.
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