George Raveling Coaching U Basketball Coaching Clinic Notes

These basketball coaching clinic notes are from when George Raveling spoke at the 2014 Coaching U Clinic in Indianapolis. Coach Raveling has been a part of the basketball community for a long time and has a wealth of information and wisdom from his basketball coaching career. These notes were taken by Jacob Collins.

Basketball Coaching Clinic Notes

Creating a Great Bench

Kevin Eastman on George Raveling

1. Thought leader
2. Lifelong learner
3. Mentor
4. Confidant

“Seek wisdom from those who came before you.” – Kevin Eastman

Coach Raveling

• “Nothing in life is of any value unless you can share it with others.”
• The game suffers from overdoes of groupthink
• Absence of mavericks, basketball nerds, innovators, and characters
• Basketball coaches have 2 responsibilities
  • Coach your team
  • Lead your program
• What got you where you are won’t get you to where you want to go
• Make yourself more proficient as a leader
  • Really educators
  • Do a self-audit =  who we are? What are we about? Why are we on Earth?
  • Look at life through a non-traditional lens
• Learn things you don’t know but should know
  • How do I maintain the necessary skills to survive?
  • Why do we do what we do?
    • Is there a better way?
    • Do we have a system that allows players to see beyond limits?
      • It has to be something that allows a player to see his/her own greatness
    • Players will do what they have to do to make you happy (Compliance)
      • Liberate them
    • If you are not careful, you can coach a very good player into being average
• Be 2 things
  • Servant coach
    • Not about me. It’s about them
    • Fundamental obligation to serve the needs of that player
    • Free players minds (liberate them)
    • Spend too much time on how and very little on why
  • Spend more time on why and how becomes easier
• Knight on basketball drills
  • Explained why they did the drill
  • Competitive
• Coaches voice is power
  • Doc Rivers kept the Clippers together with intellect, words, and voice
  • It comes down to “voices and choices”
    • The voices we listen to determine the choices we take
  • Create and develop a more productive bench

Bench

• Place for joy
• Place for pain
• The true personality of the team resides on the bench
• Developing a productive bench
  • Ideal bench:
    • 8 starters
    • 2 specialists
    • Practice players/ redshirts/ projects
  • Must have a blueprint of what you want your bench to consist of
• Bobby Knight on the Olympic team—“I’m playing 8 guys; let’s pick the last 4 based on attitude.”
• Have to live life strategically
• Do we celebrate success?
  • Find as many opportunities as possible to celebrate success
• Accountability—need to do a better job
• Make players on your bench feel special
• Attitude on the bench—“We got your back.”
• Have to have an energy bunny
• In recruiting — look for leaders (energizers)
  • Teach players how to be leaders
• Unique responsibility of coachers—coach players to be a winner in the game of life
• If you expect to achieve success, you must have an organizational structure
  • • Strategy
    • Execution plan
      • Failure is not in the strategy; it is poor execution

  
  

• You MUST establish what the expectations are of that bench!!!
  • 2 questions you must ask of players on the bench
    • 1) Why? & 2) What is in it for me?
  • Set of statistics/matrix to measure performance
  • Must have in place a system to measure performance
• Vital Questions
  • What is the purpose/objective of our bench?
  • What value does the bench create?
  • How do we achieve maximum performance?
  • Do we have a “bench substitution patter?”
    • Substitution philosophy?
  • Why do we use our present seating arrangement?
  • How to create added value?
• Roles
  • In the absence of defining player roles, they will define their own (bad)
    • A role can change game to game, week to week, etc.
    • Roles change as circumstances change
  • Not how many minutes you play, the quality of performance of minutes you do play
    • “85% of all NBA players are role players.”—Phil Jackson
  • Rarely do the 5 best players make the best team
• Goal: To consistently maximize the production and performance of our bench
• Vision: a position of distinction
• Bench: Liberate—Coach—Power
• Use the bench
  • Strategic adjustment
  • Rest
  • Corrective action
  • Enhance energy
  • Personal foul protection
  • Rhythm alteration
  • Player rotation
  • Role adjustments
• Turn the bench into a classroom!
• Assistants Role on Bench
  • Protect
  • Influence
  • Teach
  • Motivate
  • Alert
  • Observe
  • Instruct
  • Monitor
  • Voice
  • Monitor behavior
  • Eyes/Ears/Voice
  • Monitor fouls
  • Confidence builder

   

• Players in the game—Physically participating
• Players on the bench—Mentally participating
• Concept—“Next man up”
  • Be Ready
  • Be Enthusiastic
  • Be Smart
  • Be Productive
• “If you want to find out how good a guy is, put him with 4 starters.”—Dr. Jack Ramsey
• Someone comes to his desk; he moves and sets beside them.
• If a kid comes in, are you going to listen? Give them a chance to speak.
• Players want to talk
  • Listen to what he says
  • Help him with what he needs to say
  • Listen to what they DID NOT say
    • What they didn’t say often reveals more about them than what they do say
• “The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow, do it anyway.”