Later this week, I will share my notes that I used at the symposium but this morning, here are some great thoughts from Lawrence Frank on coaching your best player:
In the NBA, you must have a partnership with your best player:
- If
your best player is not driven by competition and achievement, you are
probably going to have a bad team.
- Best
player must embody what you are about.
- We put
signs up defining our culture, our belief system, and what we’re about.
- Your
best player has to buy into your system; otherwise you’re going to get
fired.
- Don’t
necessarily need to like each other, but you must create mutual respect
because you need each other.
If you’re having difficulty getting through to a player:
- Get
other great players to talk to this player – they will listen to their
peers.
- Kevin
Garnett, Jason Kidd, Chauncey Billups are culture changers.
- Show them
tape of what they are doing: compare this to what other top players are
doing.
- Bring
in outside resources e.g. motivational speakers.
If you have to work this hard to manage a player, then maybe
he is no longer your best player:
- You
can’t make players like you as a coach, sometimes you just have to
appreciate guys for who they are.
- Rank
players based on who is going to help you win games.
- If you
are under-talented, you have to do something to be different.
- You
can’t beat more talented teams by running the same stuff they do.
