Exploring basketball's best ideas, strategies, and coaches around the world

Happy Sunday! Welcome to all the newest subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Last week, we released our third quarter SG Intelligence Report, looking at the concepts coaches kept coming back to across SG, from Hedge & Plug and late-game defense to randomized offense and ICE solutions, and what those repeat views might tell us about the problems coaches are trying to solve right now. Read the report HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SG Plus Content: Baldur Ragnarsson's Contact Drills & Variable Movement Prep​

🧪 The Practice Lab: What Survived the Summer Part 2

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Jim Les | UC Davis

🥇 Best of the Week: Angled Pops​

Movements That Matter

We spend a lot of time in the worlds of strategy, culture, and communication at the highest levels. All of it matters but ultimately, it has to show up on the court.

Today, through the work of Icelandic Pro Coach (and former podcast guest) Baldur Ragnarsson, along with our own Drew Dunlop, we’ll look at the physical side of that on-court transfer equation:

• the movement
• body positions
• contact
• and reorganization players actually need to solve the game

The question underneath it all:

How can we best prepare players with a wide set of movement solutions for the positions and problems the game will eventually put them in?

The Challenge

Every player, depending on skill, position, size, and role, develops their own movement tendencies.

But the opponent also gets a say.

When a player is knocked off balance, forced into awkward footwork, top-locked, crowded, or pushed into a position they don’t normally train from, do they have enough movement adaptability to still be successful?

Practices across the world are moving toward a more games-based approach. The benefits are obvious. Players are reading, reacting, and solving real basketball situations.

But there is a tradeoff.

As play becomes more competitive, players naturally lean on the movements and solutions they already trust. And while live play provides valuable variability, some of the hardest movement problems may only show up a handful of times in a practice.

So how do we expose players to those problems often enough to expand what they can solve?

Without that exposure, players can become predictable movers. And just like an overly predictable offense, once the defense has a sense of what’s coming, it becomes easier to take away.

Why Do We Want Confident Movers?

More adaptable, fluid movers can become better decision makers, and more confident ones, when the game puts them in unfamiliar or high-pressure situations.

Sometimes a decision we label as "poor" isn’t a vision, skill, or “basketball IQ” problem. The player may have seen the right solution but couldn’t physically access it from the position they were in.

A player can only choose from the solutions their body is capable of accessing.

That makes movement development part of decision-making development.

The wider the movement solution set, the more options a player has when the game pushes them somewhere uncomfortable.

Ready-Ups: Building More Movement Solutions

One way we’ve been exploring this in the Practice Lab is through Ready-Ups, creating short movement problems designed to expose players to positions and solutions they may not naturally find during practice.

That connects closely to something LMU beach volleyball coach John Mayer discussed with us on the podcast. Mayer has pushed more of his movement preparation toward situations where athletes move because something else moved, an opponent, teammate, object, or changing environment, rather than simply following a pre-scripted pattern.

We’re not trying to collect random movements.

We’re trying to widen the number of solutions a player can find when the game takes away the one they normally prefer.

From there, Ragnarsson’s early practice contact work takes the same idea in a slightly different direction: not just how can we expose players to more movement solutions? but how can we expose them to more of the physical relationships they’ll actually have to survive?

On-Court Strength Training

Contact is difficult to prepare for without actually experiencing contact.

That’s what stands out in Coach Baldur Ragnarsson’s approach. Rather than treating strength, conditioning, and basketball as completely separate buckets, he looks for places where some of the physical qualities players need can be developed inside the positions and interactions of the game itself.

His contact work is built around three objectives:

1. Prepare players for the level of physicality they’ll face later in practice and games.
2. Expose them repeatedly to the areas and situations where that contact is most likely to occur.
3. Build strength, balance, and comfort through basketball-specific contact.

The goal isn’t simply to make practice more physical. It’s to make the physicality more representative.

That connects directly to the Ready-Up work above.

With Ready-Ups, we’re trying to widen the movement solutions available to a player.

With Ragnarsson’s contact work, we’re trying to widen the physical positions those solutions can survive inside.

Can a player stay balanced when displaced? Reorganize after contact? Maintain position when someone is fighting through them? Still access the next basketball action when the possession becomes more physical than expected?

Instead of waiting for those situations to appear sporadically in 5-on-5, we can build short environments that expose players to them repeatedly, safely, and with a clear purpose.

Drills shown in Ragnarsson's live practice film include:

• Post Contact Work
• Box Out Drills
• Denial Defense
• Off-Ball Screens
• 1v1 Defense
• DHO Defense

​SG+ Members can now watch the entire set in the Practice Lab here...

What Survived the Summer: 5 Lessons From the Gym — Part Two

Thoughts from Drew Dunlop in building The Practice Lab

For the last few months, I’ve shared one Brick, one Takeaway, and one Tinker each week.

Individually, they’ve been small observations from the gym. Looking back across the summer, though, the same lessons kept resurfacing.

Different players. Different problems. Different environments.

But a handful of ideas survived.

As we head into the season, I wanted to pull those together with some of the edges I’m currently exploring. Think of these as a menu for coaches to test within their own players, systems, and environments.

​I wrote about the first five lessons last week, here is Part Two:

5. Sometimes the Best Constraint Is a Better Cue

I tried helping a shooter calibrate misses by subtracting points for hitting the right or left side of the rim.

It made sense on paper. But in practice, it created frustration and noise.

We simplified it: earn points for swishes and BRADs. Same intention. Clearer feedback. Better response.

The takeaway: I've become increasingly convinced that clarity is one of the most underrated constraints available to a coach.

Before adding another rule, ask:

Could I simply change what the player is searching for?

6. Every Constraint Has an Expiration Date

This might be the idea I'm carrying most directly into the season.

A constraint initially amplifies something useful. Eventually, players may start anticipating the rule instead of reading the game.

They're getting better at your game. Are they getting better at basketball?

I've started thinking about constraints through a simple sequence:

Amplify → Remove → Observe → Reintroduce

Use the constraint to direct attention. Then remove it and see what survives.

The takeaway: Maybe the best test of a constraint isn't what players do while it's present. It's what they perceive after it's gone.

7. Make the Outcome Matter

During a 2v2 into 1v1 segment this summer, the basketball problems were good but the group became flat.

Rather than changing the drill, we changed the structure to Score Stop.

Score and earn another shot. Get a stop and earn the shot.

Immediately, defensive urgency and offensive decision-making changed.

Same problem. More at stake.

The takeaway: Another reminder that when an activity isn't producing what we want, the answer isn't always another constraint. Sometimes the outcome just needs to matter more.

8. Count Decisions, Not Just Reps

Volume matters.

But 300 repetitions of essentially the same problem aren't necessarily more valuable than 100 repetitions requiring players to repeatedly perceive, decide and adapt.

That's why I keep returning to decision density: how many meaningful decisions are embedded within the work?

That doesn't mean eliminating "Feel Good" reps or rhythm shooting.

It means knowing what we're optimizing for. When the goal is preparing players for the game, I want reps carrying information.

The Edges I'm Chasing Next

Looking through my notes, one idea connects almost everything:

Organize the disorder.

We spend enormous time preparing players for how possessions are supposed to unfold. But games are filled with what happens afterward. Broken plays. Scrambles. Imperfect spacing. Late rotations. Offensive rebounds. Transition. Closeouts. The play after the play.

And hidden inside those moments are a lot of edges I'm interested in exploring:

Weaponize screening. Angles, flips, ghosts, slips, re-screens and screen height aren't just actions, they manipulate coverages.

Train imperfect defense. Offense should learn to exploit defenses trying to reconnect. Defense should learn to survive when the original plan breaks.

Win transition moments. How quickly can we organize when possession changes?

Make multiple defenders decide. Three-player actions can force several defenders to communicate and solve consecutive problems.

Practice pressure. Closeouts, stunts, reaches, contact, shrinking space, clocks and score all change what a shot actually is.

Master what gets overlooked. BOBs. SOBs. 2-for-1s. End-of-quarter possessions. Offensive rebounds. Deflections. Rebound assists. Pregame. Ready Up. Halftime. Shootaround.

How many possessions could we steal simply by becoming better at the parts of the game everyone else treats as peripheral?

One Final Takeaway

Looking back, I don't think my biggest improvement this summer was finding better drills.

It was becoming more willing to remove things.

Remove a step. Remove unnecessary feedback. Remove a constraint once it has served its purpose. Remove the assumption that spacing means standing somewhere. Remove the belief that skill needs to look complicated.

Then replace those things with better problems, better information and clearer intentions.

That's what I'm carrying into the season.

And the Tinker I'm left with might be the biggest one yet:

Can we design practices that don't just prepare players to execute our basketball but prepare them to solve the basketball that happens when our plans break down?

I think there are a lot of possessions hiding there.

Together with Hudl

The Best Staffs Are Built on This

Night one starts with the work before tip-off. Breaking down film. Building the scout. Deciding what your players need to see.

Hudl brings Sportscode, FastModel, and InStat together to help your staff connect video, strategy, and scouting. Assistants, analysts, and head coaches working from the same information, with a clear plan to bring to the floor.

Prepare for your opener with Hudl.

Learn more at hudl.com/slappinglass​

Subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Slappin' Glass Podcast

🎙Jim Les on Building Urgency, Princeton Reads, and Multiple Offensive Modes | UC Davis

This week we were joined by UC Davis Head Coach Jim Les. Coach Les draws from a career that has included playing in the NBA, coaching at multiple levels, and more than two decades as a head coach. We dive into the traits he has consistently seen in elite players and teams, how he creates urgency before the season creates it for him, and why trust has to be built before a staff can get to the truth.

We also get into the tactical side: why Princeton action punishes good defensive principles, teaching split cuts through the cue “the feeder is the leader,” creating a dynamic catch before the ball screen, and using different offensive modes to test what a defense has prepared for. In Start Sub or Sit, Coach Les discusses Princeton into pick and roll, pace, ball-screen defense, and offensive rebounding.

Here are 7 lessons from the show:

1. Urgency Is a Daily Standard

Elite players do not wait for the calendar to make the work important. For the staff, urgency becomes visible in what it corrects, reinforces, and refuses to tolerate now.

2. Goals Give Accountability a Reference Point

Written goals make the conversation less personal (in a good way). When behavior and ambition separate, the coach can return the player to his own stated target and the habits required to reach it.

3. Trust Comes Before Truth

Hard coaching lands only after players believe the coach knows them and cares about them. The truth is not softened, but the relationship gives it somewhere to land.

4. The Game Can Carry the Message

“The game knows” moves feedback beyond coach versus player. Preparation, toughness, unselfishness, and response after failure become standards the game eventually exposes or rewards.

5. Multiple Modes Create Adaptability

Ball-screen offense, off-ball screening, transition, and set plays give a staff different ways to ask questions of a defense without abandoning its identity.

6. Princeton Is Most Dangerous When the Catch Has Purpose

The split action creates more than movement. A precise, paced catch can produce a closeout to attack, a screen refusal, or a cleaner setup into the pick and roll.

7. Complexity Has to Be Earned

A team gains defensive freedom only after it can execute the base coverage with discipline. Three coverages performed poorly are not versatility.

Together with NABC

Stay Connected to the Coaching Profession

The season moves fast. NABC membership keeps you connected to the coaches, ideas, events and issues shaping the profession.

More than 5,000 coaches across every level are part of the NABC, with member access to the NABC Convention, regional clinics, mentoring, exclusive awards, discounts and professional development opportunities throughout the year.

Just as importantly, membership helps strengthen the collective voice of coaches on the issues affecting the game and the profession.

If coaching is your profession, the NABC should be part of it.

Renew your membership — or join for the first time — at NABC.com/membership.

Tactical

📺 Turnout Chase - Angled Pop • RIP & Pin​

"A well-executed turnout set, incorporating an angled pop, to create an empty-side isolated pin down after the RIP screen."

🔒 Pair With: Curling the screener off the angled pop and into a baseline triple stagger.

🔒 Pair With: Popping the 5-Man out of the angled screen into a empty-side DHO stack screen.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on using a ballscreen to draw the shooter’s defender into a tag, then sending the shooter off a pindown.

Interesting Reads

📚 What Makes a Strategy Great​

Great strategies accomplish this with the following characteristics:

• Simple: Reshapes complexity to be manageable and actionable.
• Candid: Dares to spotlight the most difficult truths.
• Decisive: Asserts clear decisions and accepts their consequences.
• Leveraged: Magnifies strengths into durable competitive advantage.
• Asymmetric: Defeats uncertainty with higher upside than downside.
• Futuristic: Solves for the long-term.

📚 How Elite Coaches Make Decisions​

The best coaches treat the aftermath as its own discipline. They’re ruthless with their review, especially of their own decisions.

After Canada’s 2-1 World Cup defeat to Switzerland, coach Jesse Marsch was unusually candid in his post-game comments, acknowledging that switching to a five-back formation at halftime to shut the game down was the one adjustment he’d make differently in hindsight.

📚 The Downside of Using Exclusion to Create Group Cohesion​

Leaders who want instant loyalty, instant energy, and instant team spirit draw a circle, put their people inside it, and make clear who isn’t allowed to cross into the chosen land. While this works to increase cohesion, the “us” versus “them” bonding does come with negative baggage that shows up later.

Over time, people start to fear being rejected by the group and excluded like the outsiders they’ve been taught to look down on.

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, Eric, and Drew

info@slappinglass.com