The Player Development Thread

[KqWIN]

The one area of OP I'd push back on is the part about learning how to drive or learning how to swim. I don't think the approach of being a new driver or swimmer is similar to being a top 500 at those things while trying to become top 100.

What I resonate with the most is the idea that there are things you can impact (as a coach/organization) and things that you cannot. I don't know if I'd draw the lines the same way, but I strongly believe that a player's development mostly comes down to the individual. The other stuff plays a much smaller part, and how that is actually optimized likely comes down to the individual.

 

[HermanG]

I find the banter about player development on this forum to be grating, and so I'm creating a thread to hopefully confine it within this space and maybe someday Jason will create a new hidden forum that I don't have to read about it anymore.

Just so everybody knows what my position is:

- I think there are two basic components of player development: Skill/Body Development and Experience Development
- Skill/Body Development is done primarily in the offseason and the Head Coach has very little input in to this
- Experience Development happens as players use their Skill/Body development in games and then adjusts. The Head coach plays a decent sized role in this development.
- When fans talk over each other about player development they often mix up the two.
- It is my personal opinion that experience development is best achieved when players are allowed to have some success and some challenges. In order to have this mix the players need to play in the right environment meaning that they have enough opportunities to use their skill/body development to gain confidence, but enough challenges to learn from as well and to indicate what skills/body development they need to work on.
- The previous point is just based on common sense and how humans best learn. I just taught my daughter how to drive (extremely scary) and I first started in the parking lot with skills development and then I progressively gave her opportunities on the road to learn and excel. For example we started on neighborhood streets, then progressed to city streets, and then to freeways/etc.
- I suppose there is an approach to teach someone to swim by throwing them in the deep end, but why would you take the risk of someone drowning when you can teach them how to float and use strokes and then safely give them opportunities to progress towards the deep end. On the other hand if you just give them floaties they'll never learn either.
- Regarding playing vets to develop young players, I've never personally said this, but I have said young players need good players to develop properly. All I mean by saying this is that young players need to be in an environment where they can have some success in demonstrating their skills/body development and aren't overburdened by needing to do too much and not having any success. This is a general statement and doesn't apply all the time. There are definitely examples of players getting in the way of others player development because the young player is never able to try things.
- Player development is a balance, not an exact science, and something that happens over a long time, so be patient.

This is oversimplified. You are missing some key ingredients:

1) Mentality / emotional:
This is a mixture of at least personality, maturity, habits and mindset. Use of sport psychologists is a common practive in professional sports these days to help develop mental aspects, but coach, culture (org and locker room) affect the outcome as well.
- Key has credited his 3rd year leap to both his hard end of the season "wake up call" from Hardy and a psychologist (cant remember his name) who helped him to figure out things by listening.

2) Cognitive skills:
This needs to be detached from physical skills development since this is more of a video room /white table thing. Even general cognitive development and excercises help. You review and analyze your own game tape and the other side is studying your opponents or other teams to find ways to improve your thinking and processing.

In driving, latter is learning about laws, car engines, traffic signs etc while the former is largely about how aggressively/passively you drive.

Not a great analogy since like @KqWIN pointed out being just able and being an expert are two different things. The correct analogy from driving should be on how to become something like F1/Indy500 drivers.

 

[jazznik]

I'll just add in every player is different. Some respond really well to repeated failure. I think Keyonte was like that. He really took it to heart, but Keyonte also has a natural level of self confidence. I would assume that's why Hardy has given Keyonte the most responsibility of any young player he has had.

Guys like Cody/Kessler/Filipowski seem to be a bit more down on themselves when things go bad, so you might want to put more constraints on those players so they an achievable goal that can develop their confidence off of

So, which bucket does Ace belong to then?

 

[KqWIN]

Curious to see how people feel about some of the anecdotal evidence out there. We can all have our own personal feelings and theories, but what can we take from actual results?

When I looked around the league I came away with the impression that the thing that really matters is identifying and acquiring talent. Like I don’t think OKC force feeding minutes to everyone (except Shai) was the secret to development, but maybe it allowed them to better identify talent.

Another thing to consider is that a player’s performance and development are not 1:1. Some situations are clearly better for a player to produce, but I don’t think that necessarily means better for development.

 

[homeytennis]

I think the analogy of playground ball of keeping the court if you win is appropriate. How would the Jazz do on keeping the court? I think the odd were decent when Kessler, Lauri, Key and Nurk were healthy. Now the Jazz will have an opportunity to walk down the street and get a soda before they play again.

 

[HermanG]

Curious to see how people feel about some of the anecdotal evidence out there. We can all have our own personal feelings and theories, but what can we take from actual results?

When I looked around the league I came away with the impression that the thing that really matters is identifying and acquiring talent. Like I don’t think OKC force feeding minutes to everyone (except Shai) was the secret to development, but maybe it allowed them to better identify talent.

Another thing to consider is that a player’s performance and development are not 1:1. Some situations are clearly better for a player to produce, but I don’t think that necessarily means better for development.

I agree with everything you said here.

What I find fascinating regarding evaluation is to think whether its more important to be fast or accurate or where the balance is?

If you churn through prospects fast you gain quantity but lose quality in your evaluation compared to when you give guys more time.

 

[Peter_Mentor]

For as much as I talk about development, my actual take is pretty simple. I don’t think the environment matters nearly as much as the player. I actually think environment has more to do with showcasing talent than developing it. For the most part, you’re good or you’re not.

And this isn’t to say teams don’t have any effect on development. I’d agree with most things listed in OP, but I don’t think seeking out the perfect development (especially when it comes to minutes) is a cause worth pursuing. It’s just way more important to be good at acquiring and identifying talent. I think the best development teams are the ones who do the latter the best.

Curious to see how people feel about some of the anecdotal evidence out there. We can all have our own personal feelings and theories, but what can we take from actual results?

When I looked around the league I came away with the impression that the thing that really matters is identifying and acquiring talent. Like I don’t think OKC force feeding minutes to everyone (except Shai) was the secret to development, but maybe it allowed them to better identify talent.

Another thing to consider is that a player’s performance and development are not 1:1. Some situations are clearly better for a player to produce, but I don’t think that necessarily means better for development.

First of all, I agree that talent identification is the most important factor, but in practice it is extremely difficult to separate identifying talent from developing it. I don’t think there are clear answers or reliable metrics that allow us to determine when successful development organizations have identified the right players, and when they have truly maximized the potential of their player base.

When in retrospect we evaluate the players who became stars or who washed out after the rookie contracts, it's feels obvious to point out all the traits that lead to this point. As an outsider, it is much more difficult to assess the factors that hindered the development. With Kawhi Leonard we can now clearly see all the qualities that made him the player he eventually became. On the other hand, despite his elite work ethic, would he have focused on the right things, in the right order, within a different organization, or would he have just topped out as an elite role player? If Zach LaVine had entered a different developmental environment, would he have become a different kind of player? One with a greater impact on winning?

Lastly, I fully agree with your last paragraph.