Human Limits

David Epstein the author of the Sports Gene circulated this note to his e-mail posse:

“Mike, I’d totally read you blogging your thoughts about this: http://www.ministry-of-football.com/research-measuring-learning/.”

The link is about optimizing skills acquisition and learning in football/soccer. The take home message is that for indoor versions of the game played by primary school kids there more learning goes on with 4 on 4 vs. 5 on 5 games. In other words more touches per player, more and better passing, and more periods of continuous play.

My Response: This is so Triangle!

David, this is so triangle offense. All old school basketball coaches break the game down into 2 on 2 and 3 on 3s. If you also look at fast break drills and other traditional b-ball drills they are all 3 on 2 with a trailer. The whole point of all of this is to; 1) generate spacing, 2) that passes are faster than running or dribbling, and 3) to “feel” the pressure from the defense and generate a mismatch.

This is why the Spurs win, why John Wooden said later in his life that the women’s game was better than the men’s, and why Pop hired Becky Hammon etc.

I have the Wooden/Sharman book of b-ball drills I picked up someplace and it is all in there.

This is also classic Soviet ice hockey and Herb Brooks as well.

David’s Response

See! Ha…I knew it. You should just post this…….

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 25th, 2014 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Current Events. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.