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 shared Utah State Head Coach Jerrod Calhoun's Summit session on Program Building, Zone Defense and 5-Out Offense. Read the full newsletter HERE.

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This Week at a Glance:

🔒 SoCal Coaches Summit Replay: Drew Dunlop - Ecological Design in Player Development​

🎧 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Shaka Smart {Marquette}

📢 Dr. Dish Giveaway!​

🥇 Best of the Week: Iverson Entry & Penetration Rim Seals​

📋 Coaches Corner: Mentorship Opportunity & Defensive Closeouts

📚 Interesting Reads

Let's dive in...

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Ecological Design In Player Development

Over the past few weeks we’ve been rolling out replays from the SoCal Coaching Summit on SGTV. This week features Drew Dunlop of The Pro Lane, who opened the event with an insightful session on his player development system built around game-like scenarios, tempo, and decision-making.

Coach Dunlop is no stranger to Slappin' Glass, having collaborated with us on the "Modern Game Truths" {🔒} series. Together, we’ve explored practical training methods that connect the controlled practice environment with the dynamic game setting. Emphasizing the skills, movements, and decisions that appear most often in games and methods to tie skills and systems together.
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At the Summit, he presented on Ecological Design in Player Development, moving beyond theory to deliver practical applications and live demonstrations. His session highlighted how coaches can shape training environments to improve decision-making, design effective warm-ups ("Ready Ups"), and advance both player and concept development.

What is "Ecological Design?"

Ecological design centers on creating environments where players discover concepts by solving realistic problems rather than rehearsing scripted solutions. With this approach, Coach Dunlop structures his player development sessions in ways that look very different from a traditional workout. Instead of heavily scripted drills where players repeat the same motions rep after rep, he uses dynamic game scenarios that challenge players to read defenses and make the right play.

Throughout his session, you’ll see a wide variety of drills executed at a quick, efficient pace and they are all directed towards a few core principles.

Principles That Fit

Everything Coach Dunlop does is rooted in Ecological Design, and while the specific drills and scenarios may vary, they always return to the same core principles:
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​1. Present Problems

Development begins with game problems. By exposing players to the real challenges they’ll face in competition, solutions emerge naturally. Many drills fail because they don’t replicate the true problems of basketball. Identifying and recreating these problems is the starting point.

Zooming In: Add a simple bad spacing start to the "2v1 Good to Great" shooting drill to better mimic the challenges of a real game, forcing players to relocate and find proper spacing against a closing defender.
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​2. Count Decisions, Not Reps

What matters is the quality of the decision-making inside each rep. Finding ways to create environments where players face multiple choices at game speed, rather than predictable, mechanical tasks. It’s about building smarter players, not just more practiced ones.
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​3. Violate Expectations And Break Rhythm

Adaptability comes from unpredictability. If a player can switch off mentally during a drill, the task isn’t serving them. Disrupt rhythm by inserting challenges (like tough passes, changing coverages, or unexpected scenarios) that force players to stay alert and adjust on the fly.

Zooming In: In “1v1 Hand-to-Hand Finishing,” players are immediately confronted with unpredictability. They must first create separation from an initial defender, then pursue the ball and finish against a rotating rim protector. The shifting nature of each rep, changing angles, contact points, and timing, ensures no two possessions feel the same.

4. Self-Scaling

Great design meets players where they are. Instead of isolating skill levels or ages, Dunlop creates shared environments where the same game scenarios challenge everyone. Each player adapts with the tools they have, ensuring the task scales naturally while keeping the training game-real.

Design Tools

Now that you've seen the principles that Coach Dunlop uses to create his player development sessions, let's look at a few of his functional design tools:
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​1. Catalyst Constraints

Drawing from both Ecological Design and the Constraint-Led Approach, coaches can manipulate the rules of a drill to shift player focus and disrupt comfort zones. Whether it’s altering space, touches, or defensive coverages, these constraints force players to adapt and grow new skills in real time.

2. Variable Shot Clock

Every drill is tied to game context, and time pressure is central to that. By constantly changing the shot clock, coaches can introduce different layers of urgency, pushing players to make quicker, sharper reads under stress.
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​3. Reward The Precursor

In an imperfect game like basketball where not every shot is going to fall even if a player or team does the right thing, it's important to find ways to value and reward the process and not just the outcome.

4. Scoring Systems

Competition drives engagement. By giving “points” for actions like extra passes or assisted paint touches, coaches can elevate the value of team-oriented decisions while ramping up the competitiveness of every drill.

What It Produces

At first glance, Ecological Design may seem more focused on the journey than the destination, but make no mistake — it’s about helping players improve efficiently, with benefits that reach far beyond traditional methods.

Players don’t just learn pre-set concepts; they create their own through affordances , the real opportunities the game presents in live play that blocked drills rarely capture. Rather than chasing one “correct” outcome, they explore different solutions, giving them multiple ways to win and more tools to succeed in varied situations.

Because training mirrors the unpredictability of the game, players develop built-in adaptability. The environment may feel more chaotic than traditional drills, but that chaos reflects real basketball, making the lessons more transferable to competition.

Zooming In: In Coach Dunlop’s “3v3 Power Play” drill, the offense is given three consecutive possessions. If they score on the first, they earn a man advantage on the second; if they miss, they play a man down before returning to even numbers on the third. Players are challenged to adapt their decision-making, spacing, and tempo on the fly, building the kind of flexibility and awareness that translates seamlessly to live competition.

And it’s not just about the players. Ecological Design also transforms the coach’s role. Instead of teaching plays step by step, coaches design problems that reveal concepts. This shift challenges coaches to adapt in the same way players do — sharpening communication, creativity, and responsiveness.

The result is a development model that accelerates growth for both players and coaches by bringing practice closer to the real game.

Bottom Line

Ecological Design makes player and concept development decision-centered, adaptable, and game-real. Instead of being taught in isolation, concepts are discovered through carefully designed constraints, pressure, and chaos that reflect the reality of competition.

To dive deeper into Coach Dunlop’s application of Ecological Design, watch the full clinic replay now on SGTV!

Together with Dr. Dish

This October, our friends at Dr. Dish Basketball are giving away one Dr. Dish CT+ to a school or facility and one Dr. Dish Home to a home user! Enter HERE for a chance to win your own Dr. Dish shooting machine. Entries close October 10th at 11:59 AM. No purchase necessary, see site for details.

🏀 Slappin' Glass Podcast w/Shaka Smart

This week on the Slappin’ Glass Podcast, we sit down with Marquette Men’s Basketball Head Coach Shaka Smart for a wide-ranging conversation on coaching, leadership, and building winning programs. Coach Smart shares his unique framework of awareness, acceptance, and action, detailing how these principles shape both his players’ development and Marquette’s culture.

We dive into:

• Consciousness in Coaching – how young players can build self-awareness, manage fear, and harness ego in healthy ways.
• Team vs. Player Coaching – balancing the needs of the collective with the growth of individual athletes, including lessons learned from Coach Izzo and UConn’s player development model.
• Defensive Identity – the art of generating steals, teaching “appropriate help,” and building resilience through failure defense.
• Pick-and-Roll Geometry – screening angles, reads, and how Smart empowers players to create synergy in two-man actions.
• Personal Growth – why journaling and learning from other sports, especially football, continue to shape his evolution as a leader.

From handling fear like Matthew McConaughey to breaking down advanced defensive concepts, this conversation blends basketball strategy, leadership philosophy, and life lessons. Whether you’re a coach, player, or lifelong learner of the game, Shaka Smart offers insights that go far beyond X’s and O’s.

Together with Hudl

Hudl Powers Every Possession

If you’re already using tools like FastDraw, FastScout, or FastRecruit—you know how essential they are to your workflows. And now that they’re fully part of the Hudl ecosystem, they’re more powerful than ever. From film and play diagrams to scouting reports and custom recruiting boards, everything flows together. One system. Built for high-performance programs.

​Learn more about Hudl and their variety of products or subscribers to Slappin' Glass can also directly email Winston Jones of Hudl at winston.jones@hudl.com.

Tactical

📺 Iverson Entry - Rip • "Snap“​

"Ripping baseline off the Iverson Entry to create space to screen the point guard back to the ball."

✚ Pair With: A few subtle variations of the Ricky screen out of the Iverson entry.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on Coach Tuomas Iisalo's use of the Iverson Entry.

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📺 Penetration Rim Seals - Ram • Zoom DHO Exit​

"Exiting the ram screener directly into a Zoom DHO with the rolling big screening out the rim protection."

✚ Pair With: Using a well-timed rim seal on a downhill drive of a double drag and staggered ballscreen.

🔒 SG Plus Content: Our breakdown on removing rim protection with a well-timed seal on dribble penetration.

Interesting Reads

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📚 Very Important and Hard to Teach​

How to be curious about fields that have nothing to do with your career.

How to change your mind, especially about things that were once core to your identity.

How to deal with a certain level of hassle and nonsense without losing your cool.

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📚 Beyond Drills: How Kids Actually Learn the Game​

We finish with the last huddle. Too often this becomes a lecture on “how good practice was.” We fight that urge, but lose to our own egos most of the time. Then, players give praise to other players. The volunteer ‘flag monster’ collects belts. A simple break of the huddle, and the practice is done.

Ninety minutes, fast. Messy at times, but deliberately so.

Quote of the Week

Thank you for reading and have a great week coaching,

Dan, Pat, and Eric

info@slappinglass.com

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