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

Happy Sunday and welcome to all the new subscribers from around the world!

ICYMI: Our 3rd Quarter Review! View the full recap HERE.

This Week at a Glance:

🔓 SG Plus Content: Phil Beckner - Player Development Myths {SG Socal Coaches Summit} 🔓

🎤 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Alex Pribble {Idaho}

🥇Best of the Week: Horns RIP & Ghost Flares​

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SG SoCal Coaches Summit

A few weeks ago, we hosted our first annual "SG SoCal Coaches Summit." In this unique, intimate setting, terrific coaches from high school to the NBA had the opportunity to connect, present, and exchange ideas on a wide range of topics. We are incredibly grateful to the coaches who presented and shared their insights. Thanks to their generosity, we’re excited to share some of the presentations over the coming weeks.

To kick off the summit, one of the best Player Development Coaches in the game, ​Phil Beckner​, shared his insights on Player Standards, and emphasizing the importance of clarity, communication, and accountability in building a strong culture. He then took to the court to explore Player Development through the lens of "Myths in Player Development."

*Note: Coach Beckner's podcast with us is one of the most popular of all time. You can listen to our conversation HERE.

What sets Coach Beckner apart as an elite teacher and presenter is his ability to simplify the complexities of the game or a skill-work, focusing on the foundational elements of passing, shooting, dribbling, and more. By breaking these skills down into their most essential components, Coach Beckner creates clarity in what he is teaching and what he expects from the players. This clarity enhances both the intensity and efficiency of his player development sessions, allowing players to engage in purposeful, game-like reps to maximize their potential.

In this dynamic presentation, Coach Beckner addresses some of the misconceptions that he sees pop up in the realm of player development, giving his perspectives and insights—not just into the drills but, more importantly, into the "lens" through which he views and teaches skill development.

Below are a few of the myths Coach Beckner discusses...

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Myth #1 - Players Need Dynamic Ballhandling

"The ball needs to work with them, they don't work with the ball."

Coach Beckner opens the clinic by addressing ballhandling and pushing back on the notion that players always need creativity and dynamic ballhandling. Taking us through his progression of ballhandling exercises, Coach Beckner emphasizes focusing on the precision and force of the dribble. If a player can achieve these two things with their dribble, everything from their passing, shooting and decision making will ultimately improve.

Coach Beckner goes on to discuss that players need to be able to feel both the precision and force of their dribble within an exercise. Rather than introducing overly dynamic drills that could distract from these key aspects, he focuses on keeping exercises simple with close attention to detail. From this solid foundation, he gradually expands the drills to include body movement, while still maintaining a focus on precision and force.

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Myth #2 - Players Need Multiple Rim Solutions

"Players need to be great at the finishes that happen a lot....a right hand lay-up."

As Coach Beckner addresses, the #1 finish in all of basketball remains the lay-up. Building on the fundamentals of dribbling, Coach Beckner progresses to finishing at the rim, teaching the four most common types of lay-ups: a regular 1-2 lay-up, the inside hand finish, the Nash "extend out," and the two-foot power finish.

Once a player has their pound and posture correct in their dribble, Coach Beckner can begin to emphasize the "Three E's to Finishing":

1. Eyes to the Rim
2. Extend to Finish
3. Explode

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Myth #3 - New Drills Equal Better Results

"New doesn't always mean better..."

In today's video, Coach Beckner elaborates much further on all of the above myths, providing on-court examples, while also diving into thoughts on the use of "block training", developing shooters, "simple vs. complex" new drills, and much more.

The first part of Coach Beckner's presentation on Developing High Level Player Standards is available for free here...

The rest of his on-court presentation at "SoCal Coaches Summit" is available for SG Plus members on SGTV.

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Slappin' Glass Podcast

We sat down this week with the Head Coach of Idaho MBB, Alex Pribble! In this thoughtful conversation Coach Pribble shares his experiences in being a part of successful rebuilds, including the foundations that must be in place, and we explore tough actions to guard with a talented 4-man, and playbook and ATO designs during the always fun "Start, Sub, or Sit?!"

Listen to the entire conversation here...

Together with Hudl

We're proud to partner with one of the best tech companies in the world of sports, Hudl! Every play, every stat, every breakdown. On their own, they’re essential. But all together, they’re undeniable. Hudl recently introduced their newest product, Hudl Instat – a new advanced data platform that integrates with Sportscode and every Hudl product you rely on to create an all-in-one data powerhouse. Hudl Instat’s advanced tagging and next-level stat reports help you develop your team – and its global film library helps you find the missing piece to get the most out of every second of film. Visit ​hudl.com/slappinglass​ to learn more.

Tactical

📺 Horns Entry - Pop • Chase • RIP​

"A deceptive RIP Screen set for the center out of the Horns Entry."

✚ Pair With: Adding a veer screen to a double backscreen for the 4-man in a Horns Pass entry set.

🔓 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on UConn's Swing Thru and Diamond Series.

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📺 Ucam Murcia - UCLA Punch • Ghost Flare​

"Creating a short corner ball screen off the UCLA screen to facilitate an advance pass and then chase into a Ghost Flare at the top."

✚ Pair With: Catch Alonso attacking an aggressive PNR coverage with the boomerang pass and rescreen.

🔓 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on the Ghost Flare and using the Ghost Flare as a retrigger.

Interesting Reads

📚 Do it Your Way​

"The ultimate success metric is whether you get what you want out of life. But that’s harder than it sounds because it’s easy to try to copy someone who wants something you don’t."

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📚 10 Rules for Sustaining Excellence​

"9. Remember that fierce self-discipline requires fierce self-kindness:

​Doing hard things​ is hard. If you are going to step into the arena and risk failure, it’s important that you ​learn to have your own back​. Your physical health is only as good as your mental health. We are not minds and bodies. We are mind-body systems. Being a badass requires being kind to yourself too."

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📚 Why the Royals are Thinking Differently — and the Man Who Insisted They Did​

“I know people are saying we want to be like some other places. We don’t want to be Tampa. We don’t want to be Cleveland. We respect those organizations greatly, but we want to be the Royals. We want to build our own brand of baseball by drawing on the best practices in the industry. J.J. really went out and sought some new thinking, particularly from some organizations that had been more innovate and forward-thinking than we had been.”

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Quote of the Week

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Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan and Pat

info@slappinglass.com

We're proud to partner with the leading Sports Travel company in the basketball world, Beyond Sports! Follow the link above to learn more about why more than 600 universities have trusted Beyond Sports for their team's foreign trips. Let them know Slappin' Glass sent you!

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