Wednesday, September 21, 2011

What Is "It"?

Posted by Lee Miller | Wednesday, September 21, 2011 | Category: , , , , , , | 1 comments

Over the past 3 years, I have trained over 300 HS players throughout the southeast. Of those 300, only 2 have "it". If I was a coach at the high school level, and I could have 12 of either one of the players (both guards), I'd take it. You ask either of the players to shoot 200 shots and they shoot 300. You ask either to be at the gym at 3:00 and they are there at 2:45 working on their game. You tell either of them to deactivate their Facebook account for 6 weeks to concentrate on their game and they do it.  Both of these players work hard, work often, and understand what commitment is, but what is the "it" that they have?

Every year, Fortune magazine compiles its Fortune 500 list of the top revenue producing companies in the United States. Number 1 on the list is Wal-Mart bringing in an astounding $421 billion in revenue. Even Number 500, Seaboard brought in $4 billion.  That being said, these are some major companies, doing some major business with some elite level CEO's at the top of the helm. A lot of these CEO's could probably work 40 hours a week and still have a Fortune 500 company on their hands, but what do you think is the AVERAGE wake up time for these CEO's?  Try 5:45am.  According to Starwinar, 85% of Fortune 500 CEO's wake up before 6:00am. That means 425 of the 500 CEO's wake up every morning about an hour earlier than the average American. Will just waking up early give you "it"?  No, but all of these CEO's have "it".

Sean Combs "Diddy" is worth $475 million and is the richest hip hop star in the world, according to Forbes. But in 1990, Diddy wasn't worth a penny.  That year, he took an UNPAID internship with at Uptown Records. He commuted via train every weekend from Washington, DC to New York to work for free because he had a passion and a desire to make it big in the music industry. A year later, due to his hard work, Diddy landed a full time gig as Director of Artists at Uptown. In 1993, he signed a multi-million dollar deal with Arista records for his Bad Boy Entertainment label that he created while at Uptown.  The rest is history and YES Diddy has "it".

In the summer after the 2006-2007 NBA season, Kobe Bryant realized his fingers were unevenly spaced after taping them the entire previous season due to a fractured metacarpal.  As a result, his shooting percentage dropped that season.  He watched film on 1000's of his shots and noticed the ball was slightly rotating to the right. So what did 5-time NBA Champion, Kobe Bryant do? He MADE 100,000 shots that summer correcting his form and rotation. Kobe says he doesn't practice shooting shots, he "practices making them, " and YES if you haven't figured it out yet, Kobe has "it".

In Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers, he discusses the 10,000 hour rule.  He says that to achieve greatness in a specific field you must spend 10,000 hours mastering your craft.  He mentions that the Beatles played over 1200 times in Hamburg, Germany from 1960-1964 and amassed more than 10,000 hours of playing time during that span.  A year later, almost everyone in the US knew their songs.  He mentions that Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft and worth an estimated $50 billion, started programming at the age of 13 and spent over 10,000 hours perfecting programs before he started Microsoft. The Beatles had "it" and Bill Gates still has "it".   

After you date someone for a while, how will you know when he/she's the one? You'll know. How will you know which of the 30 homes you've just seen is your "dream home"? You'll know. How will you know which college coach is truly the one for you to commit to? You'll know. And how do you know when you have "it"? Just look in the mirror... and You'll know.

Lee Miller
Elite Hoops
National Director
"Release Your Potential"

Monday, September 19, 2011

Are You Living by Numbers, Really?

Posted by Chris Langley | Monday, September 19, 2011 | Category: , , , | 0 comments

During our NIKE summer basketball camps, player's worked daily on our Living by Numbers drills. These drills are specially designed in order to emphasize fundamental skills like ballhandling, shooting, and footwork in a timed environment that works to simulate the pressure player's will feel during an actual 5 on 5 game. The 12 drills that player's worked on throughout the week were as follows:

Layup Form:
Mikan Drill (30 seconds)
Power Layups (45 seconds)
Cone Layups (30 seconds)

Shooting:
Cone Jumpers (45 seconds)
Hot Shot (1 minute)

Ballhandling:
Figure 8 No Dribble (30 seconds)
Figure 8 Dribble (30 seconds)
Front Back Bounce (30 seconds)
Front Back Catch (30 seconds)
Flip Flop (30 seconds)

Footwork/Quickness:
Switch Cone Slides (30 seconds)
X-Box (30 seconds)

Each player's scores were tracked by their coach, and entered into the Living by Numbers Database found on the Elite Hoops website. At camp, player's were told that their scores found in the Living by Numbers Database were to act as a "baseline score" or an individual goal, as they worked on these drills daily to improve before tryouts. For our staff, the idea behind this was that if players track their scores daily, they will no doubt see tangible improvement in each drill over time, and hopefully, want to continue to get better as they set higher and higher goals for themselves!

Is that happening though? It is time to find out! If you were one of the players that attended our NIKE basketball camps this summer, be honest with me for a second, as I ask some questions about your off-season training and your Living by Numbers scores.

Have you been working on those drills daily?
Have you been timing yourself to create a pressure situation?
Have you been recording your scores daily?
If so, are you seeing improvement?
If not, why haven't you been working on each one of these drills daily?
If you answered "Yes" to questions 1-4, that is great, and I applaud your hard work, effort, and commitment to the game! And you are probably seeing improvement over the first time you did the drills in camp, so well done because we all know that "hard work brings prosperity!"

For those of you who haven't been working on your Living by Numbers drills daily, and answered with "No" or "Kind of" or "Sometimes," today is the day to stop making excuses! Although we all have them, an excuse isn't going to do you any good when tryouts come and you aren't prepared, or your season comes and you miss open layups because the pressure of the game gets to you!

Luckily, there is still time! You still have over a month before tryouts or before practice starts, so go to your Living by Numbers scores on the website, dust them off, and start working to make-up for the valuable time you have lost!

Although you haven't been working like you should have been over the summer and now into fall, all is not lost. Work on preparing NOW, so that you stand out in a tryout and are prepared to hit the ground running when your season starts! The time for you, as an individual, to get better comes in the off-season because during the season, your coach's focus is on the "team" getting better. So practices consist mostly of team offense and team defense work, not about getting 200 shots up, or working on ballhandling, or individual quickness. You need to work on YOUR game NOW, before the season even starts!

So I say all this to say, that you need to use the next 6 weeks to get yourself the individual work that you need to improve. Take your Living by Numbers scores seriously and working on them daily! If you do this, I can't promise you will make your team or make every layup, but I can tell you that your chance of success is much higher! Good Luck!

-Coach Langley


Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Fundamental Post Moves

Posted by Anonymous | Wednesday, September 14, 2011 | Category: | 0 comments

Every basketball player should learn how to post up and have some post moves in their offensive arsenal.  No matter what position you play, from point guard to center you should be ready to play down low.  One of the most important things when it comes to posting up is position.  If you get position right under the basket, which is an ideal spot, then you should be able to score just about 99% of the time.  Of course getting the ball there is not going to happen every time, and this is where having a variety of post moves comes in handy.  Another big aspect of playing down low is reading how the defense is playing you.  For example, if the defense is playing on the high side, this is a good time to use the drop step move towards the baseline side to seal the defender, and have an easy layup.  If the defender is playing on the low side, this is where you should turn towards the middle and make a jump hook or an up and under move.  It is important to practice and learn post moves first without any defense, and once you feel as though you have a good grasp on them, and then try to implement them against a defender.  Here is an example of a drop step combined with an up and under by Jake Carwell of Wheaton Men’s Basketball team. 

 Reece Wiedeman-Skill Development Coach, Elite Hoops

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