Basketball is a Complex Dance?

If you are a student of the game like I am, then you're going to love pondering some of the thoughts that Phil Jackson shares with us in my last post. I think that Phil Jackson is a brilliant coach. I use the word brilliant in the sense that he truly thinks outside the box. His "Zen Master" style of working with players and the incorporation of the complex "Triangle Offense" at a time when everyone else seemed to running free lance isolation and a seemingly endless array of set plays is completely out of the norm. And it's proven to be successful. Yes, he's had All-Star talent, but there's a long list of guys who couldn't win with talent or handle the prima donna-like personalities as well as Phil Jackson has shown the ability to do.

I love the manner in which Coach Jackson describes the process of playing winning basketball. I think that, in the quote below, he's primarily describing offense. The timing, the spacing, the speed of the cutting action, setting up screens, moving the ball, passing it to the right place at the right time. He speaks of trust. How many times have we seen players who are hesitant to pass a certain teammate the ball? Haven't we all had a player who was unable to make a pass against pressure or even a basic post feed? There's got to be cohesion and a sense of balance in every aspect of the game and Jackson captures it well with those comments.

Hearing From A Basketball Coaching Legend

As one of the NBA coaching leaders in total wins and championships won, Phil Jackson is definitely someone young coaches should be listening to. Sure he has had the good fortune of working with some of great talent. But his track record of success cannot be ignored. And his personal background has made him to develop a unique philosophy toward the game. Here are some thoughts Coach Jackson has about team offense... Enjoy!

Basketball is a sport that involves the subtle interweaving of players at full speed to the point where they are thinking and moving as one. To do that successfully, they need to trust each other on a deep level and know instinctively how their teammates will respond in pressure situations.

A great player can only do so much on his own—no matter how breathtaking his one-on-one moves. If he is out of sync psychologically with everyone else, the team will never achieve the harmony needed to win a championship.

Basketball is a complex dance that requires shifting from one objective to another at lightning speed. To excel, you need to act with a clear mind and be totally focused on what everyone on the floor is doing.

The secret is not thinking. That doesn’t mean being stupid; it means quieting the endless jabbering of thoughts so that your body can do instinctively what it’s been trained to do without the mind getting in the way.