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

Welcome to all the new subscribers this week, it's great to have you as part of the community! Those interested in getting access to every piece of content in this newsletter (plus thousands of hours more) can join coaches and staffs from the NBA to High School taking advantage of SG Plus HERE. ​

Today at a Glance:

🏀 SG Ventures: The Pro Lane Episode 1 - The Reject​

🎤 Slappin' Glass Podcast: Dustin Kerns​

🥇 Best of the Week: UCLA Twist & Turnouts​

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Let's dive in..

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SG Ventures: The Pro Lane

Earlier this year we launched an exciting annual project called "SG Ventures", where we searched for coaches who were working on interesting projects related to basketball/coaching/performance and collaborated with them to help bring those projects to fruition. You can read much more about the details of SG Ventures HERE.

We have a number of projects in the works, and today we're happy to release Part One of a three-part series with coaches Drew Dunlop and Jake Grossman founders of, The Pro Lane, a high level, year-round basketball training center in Wisconsin.

Drew and Jake both have experience coaching and training players from the pro to amateur levels, and we are happy to be collaborating with them on a series of videos that deep-dives into some of the most useful skills being used in the game.

Each installment of the series is a two-part video first showing the why's, how's, and when's of the skill being used at different levels around the world followed by an "Inside the Drills" video breakdown where we looked at live drill footage with Drew of him teaching these concepts.

For the first part of the series we looked at "The Reject" of a ballscreen and why it's such an important skill/read to learn at all levels.

The Reject

We began with a global view of "the reject" and the advantages of searching it out during an on-ball screen. Most PnR coverages are built around and most effective when the ballhandler is forced to use the screen, so, one of the main benefits of rejecting the PnR is that it immediately puts the defense in an unfamiliar scramble situation...

Every team rehearses situations or rotations that may arise out of the guard accepting the screen, but very few are as prepared to recover out of a complete tactical breakdown.

With the advantage created by the reject in mind, we worked backwards to pull apart the skills and reads that go into successfully rejecting the PnR, detailing the different visual cues that can trigger a reject by the ballhandler...

• Stepping towards the screen

• Defender Adjusting their stance
• Defender turning their head
• Backpedaling/Flat footed
• Against the reach

After understanding when to reject the PnR, we traveled further down the rabbit hole to look at how some of the best in the game rejected the screen, identifying the skills that routinely used to do so.

A few themes that pop up over and over again when looking at these reject-wizards were that they arrive at the screen with no contact, use clever change of pace and change of direction, and/or rip & jab to beat their defender into the gap.

Arriving Without Contact vs "Connect & Direct"

On the defensive side, the number one culprit of getting beat on the reject was lack of on ball pressure. Highlighted in this episode was of course the importance of setting up the defender to create the separation...

as well as tactical ways a coach can help create an advantage and/or separation for their guard before the screen...

Zooming In: A popular way of alleviating on ball pressure prior to the primary ballscreen is through the use of DHOs, toss backs, screens, etc.

On the defensive side, another takeaway from this project was the importance of ball pressure and "Connecting & Directing" within any given ballscreen coverage. Throughout most of the film study we were hard pressed to find an engaged, ball-hawking defender getting beat on the reject. Not that it never happened, but most the time when the on-ball defender was connected the initial reject didn't lead directly to paint penetration, but was instead used as a way to set up another on-ball screen at a better angle.

Back to the offensive side of the ball, when a defender willingly concedes space to the ballhandler opportunities for the reject arise more frequently. By conceding that space before the screen, the defender puts themselves at a disadvantage, where they may be late in chasing over the screen. This is often when you see defenders jump early to the screen in order to catch up, switch their foot angles, or stare down screens in anticipation...

or react to foot fakes...

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We're not breaking any news here, but after several hours of watching rejects it becomes pretty glaring just how often a reject results from a willingness of the on ball defender to leave a cushion without making the guard work for his space.

"Inside the Drills" - Developing the Reject

The last piece of this "Reject" puzzle is how coaches can implement "the reject" into a player development setting and marrying the skill aspect with an understanding of the reads/visual cues of when to use it. For this important teaching aspect The Pro Lane took us inside their developmental sessions and shared their thoughts on drill design and the constraints used to create an environment conducive to using/learning the reject.

Our "Inside the Drills" session with Coach Dunlop consists of three drills:

• 1v1 + 1 PnR Set Ups
• 2v1 Middle & Side PnR Set Ups
• 3v3 "Play It Down"

Each drill posed their own unique challenges to the players, with the drill's structure forcing them outside of their comfort zones while providing them with instant feedback.

Of note during the session was the struggle of the players in slowing down long enough to read their defender and accept what the defense has given them, reject or not. A great point raised by Coach Dunlop, and one we have heard often on the podcast, is that these players struggle because they lack sufficient, game-like reps to help make them comfortable.

This was a key point of emphasis for Coach Dunlop in his sessions, to find ways to put players in situations where they are forced to make quick decisions. Sometimes, though, they missed the correct reads...

...and as Coach Dunlop mentions, a major battle as a coach is fighting the urge to simply give the players the solutions, especially when in a player development session where perhaps the better path to achieving the breakthrough is through posing questions and challenging the player to analyze what he/she is seeing. In these types of environments where learning is at the forefront, it can be better to cede a bit of control and accept the mess. Or, as Coach Dunlop mentioned, if the drill is not working, changing the constraints or approach in order to help elicit the desired action...

For more much insight on these drills and structuring constraints to help build "the reject" into your offense view our full film room session now on SGTV...

Bonus Material: A comprehensive Power Point presentation on understanding "The Reject" included.

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Slappin' Glass Podcast

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Dustin Kerns has been at the helm of two significant program turnarounds in recent years (Presbyterian & Appalachian State), so we were excited to have him join us on the podcast this week to dive into his learnings and takeaways from those years. Coach Kerns still currently leads App State and has enjoyed success with helping them reach the NCAA tournament in year two of his takeover. This is a highly entertaining conversation as Coach Kerns shares his thoughts on:

• Program Turnarounds: As mentioned, we spend a good amount of time discussing all things related to taking a historically losing program and turning it into a winning one. At both Presbyterian and App State Coach Kerns took over programs that had suffered multiple years of losing seasons, so we had fun hearing his thoughts on the requirements in getting the ship righted.
• Teaching "Position-less" Basketball: Baked into our conversation about program turnarounds was a discussion about playing "position-less" basketball. Coach Kerns loves to teach an open-style offense where players learn to play to their strengths instead of a more rigid system. Not only is this fun for the players to play, but it also helps create buy-in when turning things around. This was another interesting segment with Coach Kerns.
• "Start, Sub, or Sit?!": We returned to this always fun segment to talk about not switching on defense, defending ghost screens, and searching for great threes.

Listen to the entire conversation with Coach Kerns here...

Listen Now!

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We are proud partners with InStat Basket, their platform has been a tremendous aid in producing our weekly breakdowns and this newsletter. With InStat we get access to their complete catalog of NBA, Euroleague, NCAA, WNBA, and International film. Coaches at every level can use InStat to prepare for opponents, self-scout, and develop players for the next level. Visit InStat now to learn more and take your program to the next level.

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Tactical

📺 Turnout - Punch - Stagger​

"An effective turnout set to generate a shot off the stagger screen."

✚ Pair With: For more on Coach Ivanovic view our Deep Dive Breakdown on his Trapping PnR Coverage.

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📺 Mornar Bar - UCLA Twist Ram Flare​

"Creative play by Mornar Bar using the UCLA Twist entry to set up a flare screen for the shooter off the decoy ram PnR."

✚ Pair With: Our Deep Dive Breakdown on Mornar Bar's Playbook.

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Interesting Reads

📚 This is Your Brain on Silence​

"Freedom from noise and goal-directed tasks, it appears, unites the quiet without and within, allowing our conscious workspace to do its thing, to weave ourselves into the world, to discover where we fit in. That’s the power of silence."

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📚 Intuition - When to Trust It, When Not To?​

"People who make decisions for a living are coming to realize that in complex or chaotic situations—a battlefield, a trading floor, or today’s brutally competitive business environment—intuition usually beats rational analysis. And as science looks closer, it is coming to see that intuition is not a gift but a skill."

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📚 "That Dog Will Die Da" - Insights on Feedback​

"One major problem with the feedback is that leaders intentionally sugarcoat a tough message because they do not want to hurt the people or they do not want to appear as a bad boss. Oftentimes, leaders underestimate the other person’s receptiveness to criticism and try to play nice which results in affecting the performance of the person..."

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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

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