OZZY

Key To Success What kind of talent to collect

In terms of recruiting and bringing in and collecting players for teams professional, collegiate or even high school, you are not just selling a place to play basketball. You are letting the prospect join your fraternity of competitors, that is what I believe. Everyone in the organization must be a hard worker and must not accept under any circumstances mediocrity. It must frustrate all any lack of production and success. You play to win, if you were not playing to win you would not keep score.

Everyone from the 12th man on the team to the 4th assistant coach must be a competitor. You are not only teaching the game of basketball but also teaching the art of competition. Everyone on the team must be striving for their best at all times. Because if you have a team with 4 competitive hard working and motivating coaches combined with 12 tough competitive players how can one lose? If you know before every game your team will give its all every single time and will be motivated just on the pure factor of winning and
losing how could a team fail? That is my goal, get a team of competitors and create a habit and a culture of competitiveness and striving for success. Teammates will push each other and together everyone would become stronger and more willful with the help of their teammates. No one can slack off and let someone think for a second they have worked hard enough. Sure this could lead to burnout, but not if the very gratification of hard work, winning, is achieved.



Competition Creed What players mind set should be.

I am going to swiftly and tactfully destroy you. I don’t care who you are or what you represent, once the competition starts I am going to do everything in my power to win. It is me against you, I am going to bring my best against you every single time. You can either equal my aggression and focus and come at me with your best game, or you will fold.

I will have no sympathy for you because that is not right, that is not good competition. I am not going to degrade you and bring a sub par effort in competition because that is cheating myself and insulting my competition. I want the best out of you, so I intimidate and challenge you. You either are motivated by that or I beat you because of your lack of focus.

As long as my gamesmanship and tactics are within the competition, I do not intentionally harm you and it doesn’t carry over to my actions off the field it is ok. Sports are one of the few areas in life where areas that release of aggression is socially acceptable so why not take advantage of it? Usually immoral acts if done in the competitive realm are not personal and are just sources of aggression.

I will stare straight through you as if you don’t exist because I respect you as a competitor and to beat you I have to be at my best and use all the available tools I have.

I consider you to be nothing, inferior, lower than myself in the competitive realm because confidence is what I seek. Mentally I am narcissistic, defensive and even create doubt to further motivate myself.

After the competition, I will shake your hand in a gesture of sportsmanship. Showing that what went on in competition is over and that we are both better competitors because we both went all out and gave it everything we had.

Don’t take it personally, I mean that, but in this realm in the competitive world you are on one side and I am on the other and there is a wall between us. To fraternize with the competitions is one step closer to accepting mediocrity.

OZZY

Basketball philosophy What is needed in the game of basketball

Offense: I am not a huge X and O guy, offense is penetration to the hoop and dish, it is that simple. Dribble to the basket off of dribble penetration, defense does not come in, you go to the basket, if they do sag in you kick it out to the open man. Pick and roll always works and really can not be stopped if you have the players to run it. Players have to learn how to go around screens properly, use screens and set screens as well. They must also move always on offense, no standing around, always moving in some way and being well conditioned is a must on both ends. Throwing up 3-point shots early in the offense is ok, being loose 3-point shooters is very important. Also the best offense is really on the fast break, because then you do not have to play against defense and really its just between you and the hoop. All players don’t have to be able to shoot, but you need a balance of shooters, ball handlers and role players. Players that can slash to the basket and players that are setting the picks. Ideally I would rather have a athlete than a shooter though because athletes if they are a true great one, you can not defend that, if a player is superior athletically then is when you might have something great. Quickness at the guard position is necessary on offense and you have to be able to get any mismatch you can, be it a height mismatch, speed mismatch or just talent mismatch in general.


Defense: Its what champions are made of, without defense you cannot win, it is as simple as that. Defense is about heart, passion, and competitiveness. A player is not a true player and competitor if they don’t play defense. Defense is want to, an attitude and a mindset; defensive players are defensive not only on the court but emotionally as well. You just have to have a passion for stopping people from being able to do something they normally do. Take pride it stopping the offense and be insulted when you are scored on. Footwork is huge, you have to make the players realize they will not stop anyone with their hands, you must slide your feet and stay in front of your man no matter what. They move left; you move left, they move right, you move right. Players have to keep their hips straight, not turn from side to side; they have to shadow the opponent. In terms of strategy I am all about man-to-man pressure defense, of course you can switch it up with different defenses like a 2/3 or a 3/2 every now and then also. Zone man-to-man defense is also a good idea as well if a team moves a lot. However, basically it is staying in front of your man and the basket, playing hard, playing aggressive, not giving easy shots and not letting a player get on a role. Can’t let the offensive player get confidence in what they are doing and don’t let easy dunks occur because those give teams a lot of energy.


Mentality: Got to love to compete, love a good fight and just be aggressive basketball players. Have to ideally be calm under any situation and confident in their abilities as a player. Intensity is great, and I love passion but players have to tone it down sometimes, stay controlled and harness that aggression and not just let it out during one play. Zero doubt, the belief that there is no way they will lose, it is not possible and ever-single game they play they know they will win. Anyone not on your team is the opponent, anyone not us is against us. That is the type of mentality I want on my basketball team. Of course, they also have to know when to leave it on the court, cross the lines you can put on your preverbal war paint and become a ‘warrior’ but remember this is a game, and once the game ends the no mercy competitor has to stop.


Fast break: Running the proper break is very important, if you have good defense you can create a lot of easy offense. You have to have a primary ball handler taking the ball up court most of the time, but that also means you need rebounders that can rebound single handedly in the post. Once the rebound is got, the PG or primary ball handler should but near mid court, get a mid range outlet pass from the post or forward and start the break. The shooters that can’t finish should go wide and set up for open outside shots, the athletic slashers and finishers should cut to the hoop and there has to be proper spacing as well. If the team has a lot of athletes, you can really intimidate the opponent if you can finish strong aggressive lob passes or big dunks on the break. Players like to run and you need the mentality of always attacking the tin. Especially for big men, they have to run, if they can run and the opposing big man cannot run, they can get so many easy shots. Early set up of the offense is very key, quickly getting organized before the defense is set and scoring because of it.


Ball handling: Nothing wrong with a little street basketball style I believe. Its all about creation off the dribble, creating off the bounce, crossing a guy up and taking it strong to the basket. Basketball revolves around penetration because it can create two types of offense, personal offense or offense for another player that becomes open off of a sagging defense. Players that are strong with the basketball are also key, they have to be able to dribble in traffic and be so tight with the basketball they do not lose it very often. I think of it kind of like football and a guy like Barry Sanders, he knew how to juke players out, make them stop and once they committed he went the other way, I think those are the best ball handlers as well. If you have guards that can handle the basketball like that, you really got something special.


Shooting: Obviously, you need 3-point shooters, those are always key, teams must have shooters you cannot win with just athletes you have to get shooters to become good. The Bulls did not start to turn it around until they got Hinrich and Gordon, two very solid shooters. You also need good shot range shooters especially as big men, if a big man can hit a shot 15-20 foot shot, they will become that much better because of it. Shooting from the free throw line is also key, but most of that is confidence and the same can go with just regular shooting. So, the proper mental techniques for shooting also have to be taught. Make the player focus on the release and not if the ball goes in or not. All players know when the release is good and can tell if the ball is going into the hoop or not, but as long as the release is solid the shot is, because then its just a matter of accuracy and not technique. Practice, practice and more practice as well, can’t become a great shooting sitting on the couch.


Rebounding: It’s your ball, that is what you have to believe. Boxing out is also very huge, you have to get your butt into the guy and start backpedaling with the arms stretched long as well. Also players must anticipate rebounds, if a player shoots on the left side most likely it will come off the to the right side. If the player shoots from the top of the key the ball will not go off to the left or right but mostly down the middle. I honestly believe its mostly passion though to get the basketball.

OZZY

The invisible basketball prospect trait.

The difficult thing about talent scouting is that the hardest trait to detect in a prospect is also one of, if not the most important aspect of their success as an athlete. The trait I am referring to is competitiveness. Hard to find and quantify, but if you get a player with great internal motivation and truly loves challenges and to compete, the prospect will evolve in one of two ways. The player will either greatly out perform his own abilities and surpass almost all of their expectations. Or, if the athlete has a natural athletic gift to go along with their competitive nature, they will most likely develop into a super star at the next level.


For clarification, the dictionary definition to compete means to “lo strive against another or others to attain a goal, such as an advantage or a victory”, competition refers to “a test of skill or ability; a contest”, and competitive is defined as “liking competition or inclined to compete”. These definitions broadly categorize the nature of competitiveness. Expanding on these definitions, I believe competitiveness is a will, motivation or a drive to be the best you can possible become. It is an attitude that 2nd place is never acceptable and even after they personally have success they as an athlete and a competitor is not satisfied with that success. Competition in general means more to competitors, they are passionate about what they do, they are intense and assertive in pursuit of their goals. They crave greatness in every way they possibly can, they are not content to just win once, and they want to win everything and anything they compete in. A perfectionist mindset adds fuel to motivation. With that motivational fuel, athletes that are competitive generally work harder, play harder and are more effective in competition. Of course, all professional athletes have a basic level of competitiveness which allowed them to get where they are at. Yet, at the highest level, I believe it takes that extra effort to be truly great and that is what competitiveness brings. Winners do the things other people do not want to do, that statement encapsulates what I believe competitiveness is all about.

I have multiple personal theories on just what makes a basketball prospect into a great player at the next level. I originally thought it to be general athletic ability, the ability to be superior to their competition in terms of jumping ability, quickness, explosiveness and general conditioning. I thought athletic ability is what separated the men from the boys at the next level. However that is not the case, there are classic examples of JR Rider and Harold Miner, to a lesser extent Shawn Kemp, Stromile Swift and Darius Miles. Of course, these players were not benchwarmers at the next level, but all were ridiculously talented athletically, however they never reached the potential heights that they should have been able to reach with their athletic talent. The story has not been written yet on Swift or Miles, however considering their athletic superiority and talent, I believe both of them have underachieved at the NBA level so far. Another example would be Vince Carter, however once his stay Toronto was up and he was traded to New Jersey, he once again became a dominant NBA talent and a top five player within the league. Now is that the system in place in New Jersey? Is it coach Frank’s ability to tap his talents more efficiently? Maybe, but I believe Carter’s success stems from pure motivation. The key is when an organization can bring in a prospect that is already motivated, loves challenges, loves to compete and strives to give it his best every single time, if the organization does that they are ahead of the game I believe.

The ideal the formula for greatness in the game of basketball I believe to be is when a prospect has three basic abilities or traits. The first one I have discussed, competitiveness, a player has to be driven to succeed and competitiveness in general implies that a player will work hard at all times because they must win, and really that is all you can ask from a player, hard work. The second trait is superior athletic ability, having the natural ability to be able to run faster and jump higher than the other players. The Third trait is having a very sound application of general basketball skills, being able to handle the basketball, pass the basketball, shoot the basketball and defend as well. Just the general skills needed to be effective within the game. A player can get by with only having two of these traits, for example Larry Bird was not very athletic, however he had great basketball skill and was a extremely competitive person. The absolute ideal for this model would be Michael Jordan obviously, he was the perfect combination of athletic superiority, basketball skill development and outstanding competitiveness.


I have always been a believer than if an athletic team tries their hardest, gives it their absolute best, that is the essence of competition, and most of the time if a team gives maximum effort and has talent they will succeed. However, if that kind of mindset, work ethic and spirited pursuit of excellence is not reflected by each of the players, problems can occur. To have 90% of a team working hard and committed to winning, but the other 10% does not follow that same belief system, the team in general will have problems.

In an ideal world, there would be a test or a machine where you could hook up a potential NBA player to and be able to tell how competitive they are. It is possible to do this with physical skills and abilities, it can even be done with statistics and in game performance. However, there has yet to be a test or machine invented that can measure competitiveness in an athlete. Not to say there has been no attempts at this area of scouting, I am aware of the ‘brain doctor’ that assists Danny Ainge and others in the NBA with their player management decisions. However there has yet to be proof that what he tests is actually legitimate. It is difficult to quantify something that is un-quantifiable.

Within my scouting experience, I have developed a few ways to help tell if a player is competitive or not. In general, the obvious one is if the player plays hard at all times. Competitive athletes do not play down do their competition, they do not slack off before the whistle blows and you can visually tell they care about the competition. Another way that I measure competitiveness is physical aggression or assertiveness, athletes using their body and sacrificing it in a way for the good of the team. Very few players that do not greatly care about the outcome of a competition dive into the stands after a loose ball. I also look at straight on body language, how they walk, how they talk and how they move. Along the lines of what the ‘brain doctor’ does, I look at facial expressions and verbal outbursts of aggression in some way. Honestly, when I am watching a game and a player yells intensely after an aggressive dunk or physical play which they succeeded, I am happy to see that. The sportsmanship fopah occurs when an athlete does the cutthroat hand gesture after beating their opponent. The media gets all over such gestures and demonizes them, but honestly I do not see anything wrong with it. In my world that gesture is a way for that competitor to express their inner thoughts without doing any personal harm. Why pretend that those kind of thought processes do not happen in professional sports when the athletes are paid to beat each other and are in direct competition with anyone outside of their organization.

The only true negative with selecting an overly competitive athlete is that there can be side effects. Be it moderate problems in the fact that they might not relate to individuals that do not have the same passion for competition that they do, which could cause overall team friction. Or the fact that some competitive athletes are at higher risk of burnout because they train so hard and diligently that they become encapsulated within that training regiment. Eventually they end up burning themselves out and their performance greatly decrease. However, with the resources available to NBA franchises, I find it hard to believe that those issues can be not address before they actually occur. When the business they are in is about winning and losing, I don’t know how organizations can pay players that are not dedicated to personal perfection and winning.

In conclusion, yes competitiveness is an intangible subject. It is hard to quantify, hard to analyze and even more hard to predict. However, I feel the mental makeup of a prospect from a talent evaluation standpoint is just as important if not more important than any other skill the athlete has. To reiterate, winners do what other people don’t want to do, that in essence is a competitor, doing what they must do to win.

Will you be able to spot the next great competitor?

OZZY

Athletic potential and its connection to player projection.


This article is about the ever present quandary NBA general managers and scouts have when analyzing their potential prospects for future NBA drafts. As in any company hard work does eventually end up being the way to assess if a worker has been productive and succeeded or not. Is the employee motivated, smart, tries hard and cares about his work? That is a constant in any job situation when evaluating employees. However in the NBA there is one ability that can mask almost everything, it can make one forget about lack of work ethic, intelligence and general lack of basketball skills. What I am referring to is athletic potential, the ability for a player to naturally run fast, jump high and perform their task with great quickness and agility while maintaining balance and control on the basketball court. Athletic potential is a quality that can in the end make bad players good and good players great. Throughout this article I will be specifically looking at a few prospects with great athletic potential for the 2006 NBA draft. I will not be looking at the 2005 NBA draft prospects because that has come and gone and there would be no reason to project draft stock and positioning for players that have already had their draft fate determined.



To start off I want to talk about possibly the best athlete in the 2006 draft potentially speaking. That athlete is James White. Well known in the basketball world for a long time with his outlandish ability to dunk a basketball. He can amazingly dunk a basketball between his legs from the free throw line, a feat that I am not sure anyone else on earth has done before. James White has great leaping ability and runs effortlessly on the basketball court. When he was just coming out of high school it seemed like he would be a lock to be a super star in the NBA and would for sure come out after one year at Florida. Well that did not happen, he has had his troubles and since transferred to Cincinnati. White has been moderately effective on Cincinnati, he has shown a better understanding of the game and he is making more plays on the court and is actually playing basketball. He did not do much of that during his time at Florida. James White could be the perfect example of athletic potential. He has the potential to be a great player just on his athletic ability alone and will most likely be picked higher than his current skill level merits. Will he be able to realize that potential before draft time roles around? Only time will tell.


Next player I am going to cover is Hassan Adams, a aggressive Arizona SG that attacks the hoop like a raptor attacking its prey. Unlike the previous athletic specimen I discussed, Adams does actually show his athletic potential on the basketball court at all times. He is a extremely exciting basketball player to watch. He is not a finesse high flyer, he is a physical athlete that is not afraid of contact. With Adams’s great length, overall quickness and athletic skill he could be a fine NBA SG. However last year, outside of his production in the NCAA tournament, Adams had a down year. He was not as effective on the basketball court and seemed to drift during games. Strangely enough, when dealing with a great athlete on the basketball court, many assume why can’t they perform super human feats all the time? In Adams case, why isn’t he attacking the hoop with reckless abandon? Why isn’t he physically and athletically dominating lesser competition? Well Adams will have to answer these questions and perform at a higher level next year to fully reach his athletic potential.


The next athlete that has worlds of ability is Julian Wright, he will be a college freshman next year at Kansas. Wright is one of if not the best athlete in NCAA basketball. I predict he will do great things on Kansas. He has great arm length and runs the court effortlessly. He can get to the hoop almost at anytime he wants to and he is a 6-9 SF. He makes plays on the court that honestly make you scratch your head, trying to contemplate how he accomplished such a feat. Wright could be a top 5 pick I think, just on his athletic potential alone. He could be an amazing basketball talent because of the things he can do athletically that are not very common. However, again that is just projection simply because of his athletic ability.



Probably the most raw case of athletic potential within this short list of players is Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Without question he has probably the worst basketball IQ or ‘feel’ of any of these players. He has the ability to be a great PF but he has yet to reach that potential. He has great agility for a big man, is very quick off his feet as well. When he attacks the rim he is as ferocious a dunker as you will find. However if you take out his game changing shot blocks or dunks, he is just a moderate player that plays down to his competition. The most frustrating part is that some of the competition he plays against, when you watch you know he is faster, can jump higher and is quicker than them, but still he is not dominating like he should. Pops has about as much athletic potential as any player in the upcoming 2006 draft, but will he ever come close to reaching it?


Gulliermo Diaz burst onto the scene last season, now he is known throughout the basketball scouting world as a legitimate PG prospect. Most of the reason behind all of his hype is because of his outstanding athletic skills. He is a very built player, he looks physically strong on the basketball court. He has big arms and is a stocky player. Diaz is also a true high flyer, he can really get up with the best of them. If you have never seen him play before, he will dribble down court and you do not expect a player his height to dunk from the distance he dunks from, however he does exactly that. I would say right now most of Diaz’s hype surrounding him is athletic potential, he is still very raw and if his athletic ability is properly molded he could be a great player at the next level.



Rodney Carney is another player that burst onto the scene last year. He really started to produce and dominate on the basketball court. Carney makes everything look easy. He plays very good defense and has good quickness and reaction time and it doesn’t even look like he is trying half of the time. He can make graceful drives to the basket and finish with power almost at will. It is well known that Carney was a former high jumper, and you can obviously see it in the way he plays basketball. He is one of the true elite athletes in college basketball without question. However like most, he still needs to be more consistent on the court and round out his game even more to become a complete player.


Another interesting player is Shannon Brown. He is one of the most athletic guards in the country. He is a great defender with his extremely quick feet and hands, he can stay in front of his opponents very easily. Brown is also a extraordinary finisher close to the basket. He just rises up over his opponents and can throw it down it any opponents face. He can really get up high and when he is on the attack he is very dangerous. He is still fairly raw as a player though, he can make amazing plays but he has yet to become an all around basketball player. His true position is also a question mark. Brown is a true elite athlete though but will he be able to show he is not just a dunker and defender?


Another recent new comer to the draft scene is soon to be college freshman Josh McRoberts. He put on an amazing show at the McDonalds dunk contest showing off wonderful balance, agility and coordination in the air. He accomplished things in the air I have not seen many individuals do. McRoberts is also a sound player in his all around game as well, he is probably the most well rounded athlete on this list in terms of general basketball skills. However he will have to show he can perform such things during a actual basketball game against live competition. If he shows the same athletic ability and explosiveness at Duke as he did in the dunk contest don’t be surprised to see his name in the 2006 mock drafts early on.


Alando Tucker, probably one of the most powerful athletes in the country. He is extremely quick for a big man, he players the game of basketball with a combination of physical strength and cat like quickness. He is very explosive going to the basket and has relatively good foot speed for basically a college post player. He is a fine athlete, but his position at the next level comes into question. Honestly the only reason I personally have my eye on him is his athletic potential, he is that special of an athlete. Tucker is a prime example how some can totally forget about general basketball skills like shooting and just focus on athletic ability. I am included into this group, Tucker has no perimeter game as of now, yet I think he could maybe play SF in the NBA because of his athletic skills.


Another extremely raw player also hales from the same school Pops plays for, George Washington. That player is Regis Koundjia. I saw him a few times on LSU as a freshman and I was sold right after I saw him on the basketball court. He has such great arm length and impressive overall quickness on the basketball court. He just seemed to move quicker than everyone else did defensively and with his length he could potentially develop into being a fine player. He is a good slasher, can get to the hoop with his quickness and literally runs like a deer on the basketball court, he can really get up and down. However he has basically not done anything on the court in terms of production, but his athletic potential will make people keep watch on him.



Last but not least Jermareo Davidson. He is a great big man prospect in terms of athletic potential He ran a great mile time, a time which is insane for a center, obviously his running ability helps him out run slower centers as well. He has a good physic also, has strong arms and looks very physically built. I like his quickness as well, he is not a slughish post player and combine his physical strength and running ability he could be a real solid athletic project in the future. Obviously others took note of his athletic ability, because even as a raw sophomore at Alabama this year, he did try out for the draft and almost declared this year even though he was clearly not ready yet.


It might seem moderately contradictory, but with most of the prospects I discussed here their athletic potential will only take them so far. Athletic potential will make some of these prospects highly rated and make analysts predict what they can be. However that prediction is assuming that the players learn how to play the game of basketball. The hard part about athletic potential is that you can not teach players to jump high, run fast or become quick. That is what general managers and scouts seek, players that can do something other players can not do, players that are already ahead of their opponent in some way even before they start playing. Athletic potential is something a talent evaluator can control, it is a consistent if you have a great athlete that they will be quicker and faster than their competition and that is the precious prize that is so elusive. If a prospect is a great athlete and shows glimpses of basketball ability and knowledge on the court at times, they can greatly improve their stock. Obviously no team will draft an athletic player that does nothing on the court, most notably the Canadian dunking sensation Henry Bekkering. players do have to produce on the court. It is not always right though that some consistently solid players that have produced for years get overlooked by their more athletic counterparts. It is not however a one way street, some great athletes go on to become amazingly talented NBA players and Hall of Famers. However just as many never make it because they failed to realize that their athletic potential, the same athletic ability that carried them this far, is not the only thing when it comes to playing the game of basketball. I like to believe basketball is the most athletically driven sport in the world, and that is possibly right, no other sport requires a full array of running ability, jumping ability, hand eye coordination, change of direction skills and overall quickness. So who can honestly fault the individuals that buy into the ever present athletic potential of a NBA prospects. Don’t be fooled though, because there are always two sides to a coin.

JT

good stuff here, a wonderful read on the athlete's competitive throes. two things i want to remark on though;

what type of defense is that? i always thought zone was quite a bit different than man2man.

i thought he was very athletic. he was a lot quicker than most fours, and a lot stronger than most threes. sort of like a white version of chris webber whenever he was on the block.

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stevemc

We played some zone-man in highschool it pretty much assigned a player to an area on the court but they would play man in that area not just arms up back to the basket zone D. It takes great team work and communication but its very effective.

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