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Home , 2006 NBA Finals, David Fizdale, Doc Rivers, Erik Spoelstra, Film session, Flex offense

ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

Sean Payton talks up Malcolm Butler amid negotations (ESPN.com) -"You know, coming out of a small town in Mississippi and through junior college and into West Alabama, it's pretty amazing," Payton told Xtra 360 radio in San Diego on Friday. "And the first three years he's had in this league, shoot, he's had a tremendous amount of success, winning two Super Bowls in three years and being a big part of a team that's accomplished a lot. So I'd say he's humble, but when you watch the tape, he plays with a chip on his shoulder.”

The All-Stars (ESPN.com) -Beasley has even shocked the Bucks by easing into the role of sage veteran. Craig Robinson, in his first season as Milwaukee's vice president of player and organizational development, has tried to build chemistry by inviting players and team employees for dinners on the road. Beasley says yes every time. Younger players prod Beasley about his weird career path -- about washing out of the NBA, and adjusting to being (almost) alone in China. He answers every question. "It has been terrific for our guys to listen to his life story," Robinson said, "and hear from someone who has been where they don't want to go." Robinson pushes players to order something at those dinners they've never eaten. It's a way for them to expose themselves, learn about their teammates, and tease each other. Some blanch, but Beasley is game for anything. He taunts more cautious teammates until they cave. He badgered into sucking oysters during the team's visit to New Orleans. "Thon won't be eating them again," Robinson laughed. -Playing decisively makes slow people seem fast.

Embracing a “junkyard dog” mentality, Simpson emerges for Michigan (Michigan Daily) -In the locker room before Tuesday’s contest against Michigan State, John Beilein posted a picture of a dog on the board where he does his pregame talks. He wanted his team to look into the eyes of the image of the “junkyard dog” to understand the anger and the desperation the canine had. -“Today was perfect,” Beilein said. “They were there. They were angry. They were like junkyard dogs. That was the whole idea. We had to go out there angry and play with that edge we so desperately need.”

The 5 Plays You Need to Know About Heading Into the NBA Playoffs (The Ringer) -The relationship between pick-and-roll and is not unlike the relationship between the flu and its vaccine. Each year, a new vaccine must be created to minimize the flu’s potential damage on the immune system. Teams have used different variations of the pick-and-roll for years, and new variants became more prominent last season.

ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

How this UVM team was built (Burlington Free Press) -When coach John Becker led Vermont to the 2012 NCAA tournament in his first season, the Catamounts utilized a . The roster was loaded with players holding New England ties. Fast-forward to 2017 and the look of Becker’s Catamounts appears vastly different. Players hail from all over — Vancouver to Toronto to Arkansas to — while the Catamounts employ a - better suited for today’s game. Vermont has evolved and, five years later, has reached the same destination as the 2011-12 outfit: The Big Dance. -Without changing the program’s core principles of toughness and defense, UVM widened its recruiting net, overhauled its offense and overcame injuries and transfers to continue to remain a mid-major power out of the . -“One thing I didn’t want to do and one thing I tried to stay true to is not taking guys for the sake of taking them. Making sure they were the right guys, from a character standpoint, from an academic standpoint, from a talent standpoint,” Becker said. “We stayed patient and ended up with Josh and Payton and then added Lamb.” -“Along the way we were able to maintain our culture and style of play and, at the same time, continue to accumulate talent,” Cieplicki said. “What’s never changed has been how hard we need to play, defend and .” -“When we recruit, we want the best kids possible and then we morph our system to the players and not say, ‘We are only going to recruit a back-to-the-basket player,’” Cieplicki said. “That’s all come to a head this year, we’ve been so versatile and able to do things so well on both sides of the ball. It’s a credit to the players, they are able to handle things.”

How James Johnson turned into incredible Heat weight-loss success story (Palm Beach Post) - Weight loss programs use before-and-after photos to attract customers to their service. The Heat use before and after photos to attract players to their “culture.” James Johnson is proof. -What got the 30-year-old Johnson to finally make his body a priority after seven mediocre NBA seasons? Was it the fact that Johnson was forced to take an underwhelming one-year deal worth $4 million this past summer in the middle of a free agency period that included unprecedented spending? Or was Johnson tired of just scratching the surface of how good of a player he could be? Probably a little bit of both. But the Heat deserve some credit, too. -“I love where he’s going,” Heat coach said of Johnson. “We want to continue to be open to where he can get to next. Hopefully we’re not going to stop here. Hopefully there’s another level or two or three, whatever it may be, that he can get to.” -“It’s super real,” Johnson said. “This culture is real. Not only that, you know the kind of practices we have. We have those kind of practices where you can’t go out and hang out all night and think you’re going to be able to come to practice and really go hard because I’ll call you out, everybody ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

on this team will call you out. We won’t leave it to the coaches to call you out. We take care of that ourselves. That’s the inside of this locker room.”

Chalk it up: In an era of constant change, Self has created a contender at Kansas (SI.com) -He establishes the rules and the tone for the Jayhawks early, usually when five-on-five competition begins in the summer. Everything is live. There is no out of bounds. Nothing is over until the ball is scored or secured after a defensive stop. It fosters a sort of brute peer pressure; Kansas assistant Norm Roberts recalls then-freshmen and Wayne Selden staring idly before the 2013–14 season as big men Jamari Traylor and Tarik Black tore at a loose ball. "What happens is, the other guys will look at you like, 'Go get the ball! What's wrong with you, man?'" Roberts says. A couple trips later, the two young wings pounced on an up-for-grabs ball themselves. "That was something that stuck out to me, and it was coming from older guys that were here four or five years that were diving on the ball out of bounds in a practice that was a month or two before the season," Lucas says. "I was like, 'This is no joke.'" -The structure is sound and unwavering. Kansas begins practices with the same brief , passing and shooter close-out periods. Like the defensive shell drill and others that follow, these are mainstays. "It wouldn't be a practice if we didn't do them," senior forward Hunter Mickelson says. The routine is designed to create muscle memory. It insures against slippage in something as simple as footwork when running down a shooter, or guards and big men working in tandem to defend a certain action. This in part explains why Kansas has ranked in the top 11 nationally in defensive in 10 of its past 12 seasons, despite roster and talent fluctuations. -It is steady success because Self maintains a steady suspicion that no one is doing his best. This not restricted to passing, cutting or shooting from the corner. You can eat better. You can get more rest. You can think more positively. "How many people in life ever get totally against their ceiling?" he says. "As great as you are, there's probably something you could do, at some in time, to make you a little bit better, in some way shape or form. There's gotta be something." -This is when his players hear the Ten Percent Speech. "He always talks about, 'If we just give 10% more, we'll be a lot better,'" says Traylor, the fifth-year senior forward. "He always asks, 'Mari, how do you think you played? As far as your effort goes, you think you could do a little bit better?' I'm like, yeah, I think I could probably do a little bit better coach. 'You think you could [be] ... 10% better?' I'm like, 'Yeah, I probably could do 10% better.' He's like, 'If you do 10% better, Wayne [Selden] does 10% better, Frank [Mason], you do 10% better, and if I can coach you guys 10% better, too, we'll be a lot better." ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Moments later, the workout begins like every workout begins. First, the three sets of warm-up dribbles. Then, the "Seminole" passing drill, with players firing balls to each other as they crisscross and exchange places in constant motion. After that, the roster breaks into five sets of three players for a close-out drill, which is basically a modified game of monkey-in-the-middle: Two players on either side, with the man in the running after passes and squaring up the recipient in a defensive stance. The routine is the genius, the genius is the routine. When Kansas plays basketball, the same thing happens, again and again.

Self, KU assistants buried in film study as Tournament prep begins (The Kansas City Star) -“It’s the same thing we do as if we were playing in Maui (Invitational),” Self said in explaining his routine Monday on the weekly Big 12 coaches teleconference. “I wouldn’t go to Maui looking at the first opponent. I’d spend early in the week looking at the second-round opponent. Then as we get closer to the (first) game, focus on the first-round opponent. The NCAA Tournament allows you to do that because each weekend is a four-team tournament.” -“That (Michigan State-) is what my focus is right now because I don’t know who we are playing yet. My focus beginning tomorrow night (Tuesday) is obviously both UC Davis and North Carolina Central. I want to have the best deal possible. I want to have my own scouting report done on the potential Sunday game before Wednesday, because Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I want my total focus on the first game.”

Frank Martin (Mike & Mike) -I tell my staff to talk to our players every day, if we don't, they are listening to other people.

With no regrets after Indiana firing, Crean looks ahead to next opportunity (SI.com) -As the plane sped down the runway, Crean delivered them the news that he wouldn’t return as Indiana’s basketball coach. “We didn’t fail,” he recalls telling them. “We didn’t lose this job because we lost. We didn’t lose this job for bad things. We’re not letting this define us.” -The advice that resonated most came from a coaching friend: “You have to get over the feelings of failure and betrayal as quick as possible.” Crean said he's on his way: “I didn’t have any real fear of getting over failure. So obviously you have to get yourself and family over the other one. We’re well on the way.”

Matt Painter (Doug Gottlieb Show) -On Iowa State: “They’re going to make plays on the other end, but you can’t allow them to get in transition. You can’t allow them to speed-dribble into 3’s. Once they start to do that, now it ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

gets a little contagious. We knew they’d make a run. Our disappointment was our offensive efficiency. We felt we could stop some of that transition just by scoring the basketball.” -“When it gets late like that, your execution is so important. You don’t have to play hero-ball. Just execute, run what we call and take what the defense gives you. That’s a big thing for us because we don’t have 2-3 guys that can just break you down late in the . We play through our big guys. That’s tough sometimes late in the shot clock or at the end of games. Our guys sometimes get away from what we want to do because they think they have to go do something out of character. Be efficient, run what we call and play off the big guys. -I think we cause matchup problems for a lot of people. We have to make sure those matchups come into play and if you take bad shots and turn the ball over, it’s not going to come into play and they’re going to get in transition and it’s going to be a long night. -On Kansas: “They feel comfortable in two different games. A lot of teams can’t do that. They’ll out out-score you or they can grind you.”

Dirk Nowitzki: ‘In my soul, I’m still young’ (Yahoo Sports) -“I reflect at times, but I don’t want to reflect too much. I want to stay in the moment,” Nowitzki told The Vertical. “You reflect a little bit. All the hard work you put in, paid off. Go through everything. All the people that helped you around, your family, now wife and kids. The support system that’s been with you for so long. Doubters and critics early on. All that goes through your mind. It’s a feeling of a little bit of fulfillment. But just for a little bit. It lasts for a bit. And then you’ve got to keep plugging and keep getting better.” -With a basketball bucket list that has long been scratched off, Nowitzki now finds satisfaction in the competition, in providing mentorship for an unusually young squad, and in the joy that comes from those moments that make the grind worthwhile. “You’ve still got to enjoy the grind,” Nowitzki told The Vertical. “Sometimes it’s tough. If you don’t like the lifting and all the practicing, or the extra shots, I might as well retire. I still love the game. The practices. The weightlifting sessions in the summer, when you’re on vacation, all of that gets a little old. Once the game starts and the fans, that’ll always be fun. So I’m going to do it as long as my health holds up. And we’ll see how long it goes.” -Nowitzki won’t ever forget how and Nash helped him adjust to an unforgiving league. He learned from his disappointments, was motivated by the misery that came from losing in the 2006 NBA Finals, exiting in the first round a year later and receiving his MVP trophy while on vacation. That’s why Nowitzki has no problem paying it forward to his younger teammates. He earned the greatness he always wanted. When he noticed languishing through the preseason last October, Nowitzki invited him to work out. Nowitzki put Barnes through his usual shooting routine and was amazed to see the range, touch and skill of a player who had ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

recently been rewarded a max contract. Nowitzki saw that Barnes could mimic his offensive arsenal, including that patented one-legger. “He had all that,” Nowitzki told The Vertical. “I was like, ‘We got to see that in the game.’ ”

Why Erik Spoelstra and the Heat don’t believe in tanking (Yahoo Sports) -Erik Spoelstra knows what you want. A narrative. An anecdote. A lightbulb-clicking moment that transformed Miami from a sputtering 11-30 team to one surging toward .500 and a playoff spot. Here’s the problem: He doesn’t have one. “Everybody wants an ‘ah-ha’ moment; there hasn’t been [one],” Spoelstra said. “What it is, is boring, methodical, incremental and not even straight-line improvement. It’s what nobody wants to hear nowadays in this millennial generation. It’s not an overnight thing. It was two steps forward, one step back. One step forward, three steps back.” -Even at its lowest point, the Heat never considered scuttling the season. “That’s just not our style,” Spoelstra told The Vertical. “Look, I’m not naïve. I know that if it didn’t get better, [team president] Pat [Riley] might have had to do his job in a different way. I’m very aware of that. But there was never a discussion about not playing this guy, or games are not meaningful. That’s just not us.” Miami’s focus: Player development. Few coaches are better at it than Spoelstra, and few organizations are as committed to it as the Heat. Three years ago, was on the NBA scrap heap. Today, he’s a 16.9-points-per-game scorer and the NBA’s leading rebounder. Tyler Johnson was an undrafted free agent. Two-plus years with Miami and Johnson is a 13.9- points-per-game scorer. -The Heat’s philosophy is simple: Earn everything. Starts are not promised. Minutes are not guaranteed. Play poorly, don’t hustle and you will get used to wearing warmups. “With injuries, even with our bad record, guys had to learn quickly that no, you are not getting your same spot back,” Spoelstra said. “You have to fight for it. The first time that happened with some of our young guys, we got quizzical, almost entitled looks. Then that look changed to, ‘Oh, [expletive], this is real.’ Then it was, ‘OK, I have to fight for this. Let me get to work.’ That is a very powerful thing to go through for a young player.” -“It’s not easy to start 11-30 and run off what they have run off,” Celtics coach said. “They all have a tremendous resiliency to be able to do that. I couldn’t be more of a fan when watching an NBA team than I am of watching Miami this year.” -What the Heat will say is that they believed this kind of late season surge was possible, that they were never as bad as the record suggested. “I wasn’t selling coach-speak,” Spoelstra told The Vertical. “We were in the most clutch games of any team in the league and we lost more games by a close deficit than any team. We were doing a lot of good things and building a lot of good habits. We went through tremendous adversity with guys in and out of the lineup every night. We ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

still found a way to build a reliable defense, and the group was able to stay connected through it all without making excuses or feeling sorry for itself

What makes Gonzaga different than every other Sweet 16 team (USA Today) -The decision of Norvell, who was rated as one of the top 100 recruits entering this season, as well as that of fellow freshman Jacob Larsen reinforce an area in which Gonzaga zags where the other teams in the NCAA tournament Sweet 16 zig. In a period in college basketball when many players in top 25 programs view the sport as a brief way station en route to the professional game, Gonzaga has a tradition of players intentionally prolonging their college careers. Eleven of the 17 players on the Bulldogs’ roster have redshirted during their time here. The other 15 teams still alive in the NCAA tournament have an average of 2.93 such players. -Nigel Williams-Goss, the Bulldogs’ all-American redshirt junior guard, recognized that quickly when he was entertaining suitors after deciding to transfer from Washington in 2015. Like almost all Division I transfers, he was going to have to sit out a season per NCAA rules, but the last thing he wanted to do was spend that time actually sitting. “That was one of the biggest reasons why I came here was because of the plan that they had in place for me,” Williams-Goss said. “It was already mapped out when I came on my visit as far as what we were going to do, things we were going to work on.” -“I took other visits, and none of the other schools had a game plan for me,” Williams said. “But Gonzaga when I sat down for my visit (spelled out) you need to work on this, this and this. I took that plan to heart, and when I stepped on campus, I got straight into it.” -Yet Gonzaga has figured out how to turn the redshirt year into a recruiting tool. Player development is one of the program’s core pillars, and Knight presents redshirting as a problem- solving exercise that is different player to player and often day to day. The weight room isn’t a place to brag or turn into bodybuilders, but just one of dozens of tools for the players’ benefit. “We literally try to not leave any stone unturned,” said , Gonzaga’s , “whether it’s nutrition or sleep or DNA predisposition to weights to speed, agility, flexibility, yoga. Capping out their potential has always been the goal. If you’re not getting the top five or 10 or 15 players in the country — which we don’t get coming out of high school — you focus on, Let’s get these other guys that we evaluate properly and know how hungry they are and their potential and then let’s do it that way.” -Matt Santangelo, who was part of a five-player redshirt class in 1995, remembers being told as a freshman, “You’re going to be better at the tail end of 22 than on the front of 18.” -Few reiterates that the process has evolved since Santangelo’s era, with Knight the being one of the biggest differences and players like , and now Williams-Goss earning all-America honors in their first seasons post-redshirting. “They now have multiple examples to say, ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

‘Hey, our system works,’ ” Santangelo said. “Our system is working for whichever direction you’re coming from or going to.” -Michaelson says basketball alumni who redshirted tend to ask about the current redshirts’ gameday workouts, which have become a tradition that bonds generations of Bulldogs players because of their intensity and competitive nature. The days when Gonzaga is playing are the days the redshirts have their hardest workouts, a combination of weight room training and on-court training in an empty gym that soon will be filled with fans rooting for or against the Bulldogs who are actually playing. -In Gonzaga’s final game that season, a 22-point loss to BYU in the NCAA’s Round of 32, Olynyk had played 10 minutes off the bench. He suggested that it should be his final game in a Bulldogs uniform, that he should transfer. “He was frustrated,” said assistant coach Tommy Lloyd. “He was kind of a late bloomer, so physically he wasn’t quite there, so he had a lot of balance issues and things like that. But he loved it here so much, we were able to sit down and have some honest conversations. Basically, the conclusion was, Yeah, transfer. Transfer to Gonzaga and redshirt here. We’d had a ton of redshirts before, and they’d all had success and let’s see what we can do with you.” -Because Olynyk was a rare mid-career redshirt, Lloyd said, he was able to focus on the aspects of his agility and movement that were specifically tailored to accentuate the style of play he had been a part of for two years. Olynyk’s commitment and growth redefined what could be accomplished in a redshirt year at Gonzaga. “Mentally he shifted where he became tough and physical and willing to go inside and outside,” Michaelson said, and then all of a sudden not much after Christmas there was a stretch where it was, He might be our best player. In February and March, we knew what we had coming. He was our best player. Our best player’s not even playing this season.” -“What’s made it work is we have a culture of ownership and responsibility,” Lloyd said. “Those guys know they’re redshirting for a reason, and I always tell them the redshirt needs to be your ‘because’ year. Because you redshirted, you were able to do this. It’s not a wasted year. Your mindset needs to be at the end of your career, because you redshirted, you were able to do this, this and that.” -As Division I transfers, Williams and Williams-Goss’s redshirt years were mandatory, but because of them Williams learned to get more arc on his shot, use the on hook shots, and actually show he could use his right hand. “I was so left-hand dominant in my two years at Missouri, you probably thought I’d cut my right hand off,” he said. The focus for Williams-Goss was almost all mental, specifically recognizing and manipulating floor spacing to his advantage. He embraced the work, especially because he couldn’t imagine how much he could improve if he had an entire year to study and work on his game.

ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

Gregg Popovich, -“The measure of who we are is how we react to something that doesn’t go our way.”

Frank Martin’s pitch to Sindarius Thornwell (New York Post) -At the time, Martin was just getting started at South Carolina, and the basketball program had little success. He needed an in-state prospect like Thornwell, a top 50 four-star recruit to energize the fan base and attract other players. At the time Jadeveon Clowney and Marcus Lattimore were football players here,” Martin recalled. “And I sold him on, ‘You can be them for our basketball program.” -“Kids recruit each other,” Martin said. “Coaches get a lot of credit for recruiting. At the end of the day, kids, they go on your campus and they meet the players in your program and they decide whether or not they want to be a part of that team because of that relationship.”

The inside story of how Oregon reached the Final Four (SI.com) -“No, [coach Dana] Altman hasn’t changed one bit, we haven’t changed one bit, in the process of what we do before a game or during a game,” sophomore guard Tyler Dorsey says. “Everything has been the same. Everything has been natural.” -It might be that Oregon got one more important contribution from Boucher. Given the chance to address his teammates after his injury, his message was clear: Don’t feel sorry for me. Don’t waste the opportunity ahead. “You never know what could happen,” Boucher said. “Before [games], I was a little bit negative about myself, what I was not doing, whatever. Then when you don’t play at all, you’re like, you should have just been happy that you’re playing, actually.” -The message Altman delivered was sympathetic but also necessarily forward-looking. “It’s, we still have the same ambition, the same goals, the same direction, the same mindset,” McKenna recalled. “We just don’t have one of our really good players.” To that end the schematic tweaks have been minimal. On offense, the coaches had to add a couple of sets for when 6’9” forward and 6’11” forward Kavell Bigby-Williams were on the floor at the same time; Bigby- Williams doesn’t have Boucher’s shooting touch, so using him in the same way doesn’t make sense.

The making of Rudy Gobert (ESPN.com) -But weeks into the talks, with tens of millions of dollars at stake and an Oct. 31 deadline from the league, the one thing that had not come up at all was the one thing agents typically care about most: money. "It was so long that I started to get nervous," Ndiaye joked. Instead, what Lindsey painstakingly detailed was Utah's long-term developmental plan for Gobert. The short version, according to Lindsey: "Making Rudy safer, stronger and more skilled." But he was deep into the ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

particulars of the plan that had been in place since the Jazz selected Gobert with the 27th overall pick in the 2013 draft. -They explored the additional duties and responsibilities, such as the Jazz's expectation that Gobert would emerge as a team leader. They discussed their hope that Gobert would spend his summers at times in Salt Lake City under the supervision of the Jazz staff. They talked about Gobert's potential for improvement, with Lindsey emphasizing the Jazz were investing in a dominant defensive presence and complementary offensive force, not paying Gobert to grow into a go-to scorer. -In 2013, something similar caught Lindsey's eye when he went to watch Gobert play for the French club team Cholet. Gobert was raw, but Lindsey liked how he approached pregame warmups. "He was working on completely the wrong stuff," Lindsey said with a laugh. But Gobert cared deeply about getting better at basketball. "I know this sounds crazy, but it's proven to be true to date: His want to be good is as unique as his wingspan and standing reach," Lindsey said. -Lindsey was working late the night before the workout when he saw Gobert, who had asked a Jazz intern to let him in, putting himself through a strenuous workout on one of the practice courts. For Lindsey, it confirmed the feeling he got during a European scouting trip months earlier: Gobert would do the work. "He likes to play. Like, he enjoys playing," said Alex Jensen, the Jazz assistant coach who works individually with Gobert. "I think a lot of big guys kind of fall into it because of just being big, but he likes to play and he wants to be good. It sounds simple, but it's rare. It's not the norm." -"You've got a chance to be great," Snyder recalled saying. "It's just a question of when it's going to happen. If you're continually late to the plane, people aren't going to take that commitment you have to the group as seriously." -Gobert's main takeaway was that Snyder had high enough expectations to be hard on him. He liked that. "He always talks about that - relationship," Gobert said. "He said that Gregg had always been hard on Tim, and that's the kind of relationship that he wants with me." -Snyder and Jensen form a one-two tough-love punch with Gobert, stressing the importance of details to him. But they can't just tell Gobert what to do. They always have to explain why, because Gobert likes to understand how things work and how his role translates to winning. (No staff is happier that the NBA started tracking "screen assists" this season. Gobert ranks second in the league at this thankless task, giving his coaches tangible evidence that there's value in the things they ask him to do.) -"Part of it with Rudy is just having him believe and trust you that this is what he can do to be successful," Snyder said. "He needs to know why. He needs to understand and believe you. On a ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

personal level, that kind of mutual commitment and partnership is foundational in his development." -Jensen runs individual film sessions with Gobert most days. They are usually only six to eight clips, maybe one of which celebrates Gobert helping the team with something most fans wouldn't notice, such as rolling hard to the rim and inspiring the defense to rotate in such a way that gets an open 3 for a teammate. The rest are normally correctable mistakes, such as Gobert getting pump- faked off his feet or clogging the Jazz's offensive spacing by flashing to the ball at an inopportune time. Those sessions typically last between five and 10 minutes, depending on whether Gobert is in one of the contrarian moods the team has come to expect from time to time. "It's funny, because there's ongoing debates we'll have about things," Jensen said. "He's smart, he's confident and he has opinions about things." -"He can be dominant defensively," Snyder said. "He impacts the game because he has a presence. He creates thought at the rim: Whatever type of shot you're going to shoot, whether you're going to pass or shoot, whether you should not shoot." -"I just love to win," Gobert said, "and I love to shut people's mouths." -"I think the thing with Rudy is being very, very honest and realistic and him trusting that that's the case and then also being incredibly optimistic about his ability to improve," Snyder said. "Because he believes in himself, and you have to believe in him. Frankly, it's warranted. It's warranted because he'll work at it. Any time you see a person commit and work and is dedicated specifically on certain things, they're going to make progress. Him kind of understanding and accepting, what are those things? What are the best things for me to work on today? I wouldn't put a ceiling on him. His game's going to take its own direction. That growth process, I just never want to put a ceiling on a guy. I'd rather have it kind of happen organically. Sometimes people surprise you.” -"Slow down, big fella," Lindsey said, a little leery of Gobert's latest ambition. "It's just like I told him when I sat with him right before we penned the deal: 'We're paying you to defend, to shot , to rebound, to finish and to provide the defensive integrity that we believe you need to be the last team standing in the league.' He got that. I understand him very well at this stage. He doesn't even have to say it. You can feel it. He wants more. But it has to be more within the context of the group."

Josh Hart (The Doug Gottlieb Show) -: “When we recruit a guy, we always look at ‘What do we think he could become?’ We’re usually very positive about it. I thought Josh would have a chance to be a great competitor, defensive player, offensive rebounder, . He has become such a complete, intelligent basketball player and a really humble leader. And all that just separates him.” ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-“Biggest thing is being coachable and not having an ego. I was just so receptive to being coached.”

Belichick thinks talk of Deflategate ‘Revenge Tour’ is insulting to Brady (Patriots Wire) -“With all due respect, I think it’s really inappropriate to suggest that in Tom’s career, he’s been anything but a great teammate, a great worker, and has given us every ounce of effort, blood, sweat and tears that he has in him,” Belichick said. “And to insinuate that this year was somehow different, that this year he competed any harder or did anything to a higher degree than he ever has in the past is insulting to the tremendous effort and leadership and competitiveness that he’s shown for the 17 years that I’ve coached him. It’s been like that every year, every day, every week, every practice. I don’t care if it’s in May, August or January, Tom Brady gives us his best every time he steps on the field.”

Why Urban Meyer hated – but now is thankful for – a Greg Schiano drill (FoxSports.com) -Urban Meyer has a story he wants to tell. He’s talking about practice. Well, really, it’s a story about a practice drill, one Meyer hated the first time he saw his new defensive coach Greg Schiano doing it with his Buckeyes. Last spring, Meyer, who has won three national titles, spotted Schiano doing this drill, where he had players at a and when the QB’s front hand came off the ball (an indicator that he’s about to begin his throwing motion), the defenders were to raise up their opposite hand toward the passing arm. “What is this?” Meyer thought to himself. “Why are we doing this drill?!” -The Ohio State head coach admits now that drill at first drove him crazy and he wanted to stop it, but opted not to interrupt because he says Schiano knows what he’s doing. Meyer’s glad he let Schiano do his thing. Schiano’s “Match The Hand” drill directly led to a momentous Pick-6 in the Buckeyes’ win at Oklahoma. -Meyer said it’s not just scheme that makes Schiano a great defensive coach. It’s his ability to identify issues and clean them up. “He made a comment to me a year ago (after Schiano was hired) that we weren’t great in turnovers,” Meyer said. “We were good but why can’t we become that suffocating defense? His drill-work is reflective on that. That’s what makes him a great football coach. That’s what makes him special.” -“Our big thing is you want to disrupt the path of the ball,” Schiano said. “Sometimes you tap it, and sometimes the quarterback changes his angle. It’s one of those deals where, like, if you change the compass on a boat one degree. If it goes a mile, it doesn’t really change it that much but if it goes 50 miles, you’re gonna be off course. Same thing with a pass. If you can change it at the point of departure, it can be [two-feet different], and those how you make .” ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-“I thought he’d be great, but it’s been even better than I thought. On a personal level, he’s been incredible for me to have as a sounding board as a guy that sat in that chair, and obviously from a statistical standpoint, from what our defense did from a year ago speaks for itself.” -“We just have to develop ’em as fast as we can,” he said. “I don’t see that changing any time soon. You recruit great players. They’re not gonna be here very long. They’re gonna get their opportunity. They’re gonna make the most of it if you coach ’em right. What (OSU assistant) Mickey (Marotti) does with sports performance and the mental development is second to none. What often holds people back is the mental toughness. Mick develops mental toughness at a level I’ve never seen. All of those components add up to kids playing early if they’re talented enough, and gives them a chance to really shine.” -“He is the hardest-working recruiting head coach I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I thought I was like off the charts. I was not even close. He’s a machine. Just so passionate about it. That’s what drives the recruiting at Ohio State. He sets the standard here. Coach’s best attribute is that he dives right in. He’s in the middle of relationships with every one and he’s current on everything. He set the bar to me of what a head coach needs to do as a recruiter.” -Schiano’s also learned that if — and when — he becomes a head coach again, he will delegate more, though it’s so tempting to get caught up in the details because like most coaches, you’re a Type A personality who wants things done a certain way. “You must resist doing that,” he said, adding that he believes in “the exponential power of coaching your coaches and coaching your support staff and then empowering them to go do it as opposed to have to be involved in everything all the time.” -“My wife told me I remember the happiest you were was when you were the defensive coordinator coaching your kids at Miami,” he said. “I think what happens is when you’re the head coach, there’s so much that’s on your mind all the time. When you’re the head coach, you’re in charge of every support person of every person that touches the program, everybody that touches the coaches, the players.”

Steve Stark, President -It’s important to have transparency in regards to what you do and how you do it. -Sports have the ultimate transparency because of the scoreboard. Other industries could learn from sports. Make your key metrics ridiculously visible. What are you trying to accomplish? Does everyone know it? Being completely transparent about a metric or a goal can galvanize the group and build teamwork as they fight towards that goal. -Here’s some great career advice: “Be interesting. Be able to hold conversation. Be able to talk on a multitude of subjects.” -What gets measured gets done. ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Was fortunate to land a great job at 27 alongside Larry Miller, but I wasted the first year of the experience worrying about what everyone else thought. The only thing you can worry about is yourself. Do a great job, work hard, be respectable and everything else will fall into place. I was insecure about how others viewed me when I should have just focused on that. -Larry Miller: ultimate integrity in business. Would back out of deals in which he was getting too good of a deal. Was that bad for business in the short-term? Perhaps, but no one had a better reputation than Larry did and he could look everyone in the eye and in the long-run, I think it ended up helping his business greatly. -Leadership relies on competency. If you’re not skilled enough in the craft, there’s a limit to the leadership. -Is leadership nature or nurture? Both. There are some “soft” skills that are innate, but also you can grow as a leader by studying it and working at it. -Balance in life is a function of prioritization. Everyone has x amount of minutes in a day. It’s about how you spend them. What are the most important things we have to do right now? Delegation is huge with this. -Something I wish I could go back and tell myself 20 years ago? The importance of keystone habits (meaning if you do this, other parts of your life will fall into place—we all different ones). Best keystone habits: (1) Waking up early (2) Being intensely curious -Character evaluation is a big part of our work leading up to the draft—can we trust him? -No matter the industry, there are some truths across all companies: hire good leaders and trust them to run it day-to-day. There are cultural threads as well: integrity, service, customer comes first, use science and data to our advantage. Not all companies are the same though. It’s good for them to have a personality.

Pete Carril, Princeton -Everybody makes such a big deal today about team play because there’s such a scarcity of it. Greed is a reason. You have to understand the influence of greed. A player has to be selfish in the pursuit of the development of his skills, but he cannot be selfish when it comes time to blend them in with what’s good for his team.

Manoj Bhargava, 5-Hour Energy (How I Built This) -Had no chemistry/nutrition background. That only messes you up further. Most inventions have been invented by people who didn’t have a background in the field. The great stuff was made by people who didn’t follow the rules of the experts. Experts are great at telling you what you shouldn’t do and for that they’re useful, but they’re terrible at telling you what you should do. -In business, you have to do everything right and then you have to get lucky. ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Examined the energy industry and saw only drinks. Why are we assuming the tired customer is also thirsty? I didn’t want to fight Red Bull, Monster, Pepsi, and Coke for space in the fridge. -It all starts with a great product. You could do everything right, but if you don’t have a great product, it won’t work. -One of the traits you have to have if you want to be an entrepreneur: you have to be able to take the heat of failing. I fell so many times, I had pavement marks on my face. -Advice to entrepreneurs: (1) Use your common sense (2) Have determination (3) Have a sense of urgency -Use your common sense, not MBA speak. -Prefers determination rather than passion because passion can come and go.

Challenged by their coach, Celtics find a way to end bumpy week with a win (ESPN.com) -So on Saturday, after watching his team away a 19-point second-half lead and find itself down 7 with under seven minutes to play against the , Celtics coach Brad Stevens issued a bit of an order. "Coach said in the huddle, 'Don’t think there’s not going to be playoff games like this. Just figure out a way to win,'" Celtics Isaiah Thomas told reporters in Charlotte. -"When [Stevens challenged his team], it was real though," Thomas told reporters. "The playoffs are going to be different type of games, where you just gotta figure out a way to win. And tonight was one of those games where they took all the momentum from us and it felt like it wasn’t going to go our way. And we made a couple plays on both sides of the floor and we got a win."

To , Draymond is the D equivalent of Steph Curry (CBS Sports) -“He’s just innately a focused, aggressive player who really, I think, sees the pictures of the game earlier than most,” Adams said. “And that allows him defensively to be an actor rather than a reactor to situations.” -Other coaches and executives have been looking for their Draymonds ever since. He and the Warriors showed the league how a Swiss Army knife guarding all five positions can be even more valuable than a behemoth protecting the paint. At times when Green has struggled with other parts of his game, Adams has reminded him that all he really has to do is be himself. “I say, ‘Draymond, you’re a unique person. In your lane, there’s no one like you. And it’s important that you understand that,’” Adams said. “What he does sometimes is the work part of it, the redundant part of it to some people, but it is, to me, it’s just like the essence of being a winner.” -“He coaches me and I coach him,” Adams said. “And by that I simply mean he is, to me, a coach on the floor. Especially at the defensive end of the floor. He also does things at the offensive end of the floor that are special, but we’re talking defense now. He has the ability to analyze the game, he ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

has strong opinions about the way things should be done. There are times that he wants to amend what we’ve proposed to do, and that’s something that I accept.” -“The thing that makes you great can never leave you, and the thing that makes him great is his drive and the dynamic nature of how he does things,” Adams said. “When you’re that kind of a player sometimes you can ruffle people’s feathers, but so be it. That’s who he is.”

Seven Rules for drafting the right quarterback (The Ringer) -Walsh believed in a simple answer: Few teams know what they are looking for in a quarterback. So he flipped the paradigm: Instead of evaluating what a young QB could bring to his team, Walsh evaluated how a quarterback could excel in his West Coast offense. His cheat sheet demanded the following things: a quick-footed passer; a rhythm thrower; athletic movement; toughness; a winning pedigree; and someone who instinctively knew how to play quarterback. He scouted inside out, not outside in. -Vince Lombardi: “Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.” - It takes physical toughness to endure gruesome hits, but it takes true mental toughness to focus and concentrate while you’re in pain. Scouts must determine if the prospect has the discipline to handle the same routine each and every day without ever cutting corners. -You would be astounded by how many teams ignore this [“Is he the hardest-working player on the team, or at least one of the hardest?”]. Do you think JaMarcus Russell was the hardest worker at LSU? Or Johnny Manziel at Texas A&M? once said, “Your best player has to set a tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning.” Being lazy? That gets in the way of winning. Lifting weights and taking care of your body? That’s hard work. -Examine recent busts and show me a truly hard worker who failed. Ryan Leaf showed up 20 pounds overweight for his combine weigh-in; why wasn’t that a bigger red flag? Your franchise QB, if you can find one, should always be a gym rat. First to work, last to leave. He should be constantly working on his craft and constantly trying to improve. He should embrace hard work. And if he doesn’t, you’re screwed. -You cannot teach obsession; it has to come naturally. Take Drew Brees, who studies tape of opponents constantly. He knows the personnel, the scheme, and any adjustments within the scheme. He’s so obsessed with gaining knowledge that his suggestions and recommendations can annoy his coaches. -The star quarterback has to be respected, feared, and loved. His competitive nature must be contagious. Teammates must want to play with him. And he must command the huddle. If you can’t say those four things about your QB, you won’t win. Any team missing a leader at quarterback ends up being rudderless. It’s the law of football. ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Of course, finding the truth on this specific subject is the biggest challenge of all. Colleges are trained to say wonderful things about their prospects. Why? Because planting players on NFL teams helps promote their programs. Teams cannot rely on finding out the right information from any college staff. They have to dig deeper. Trait 1: Winning Pedigree Trait 2: Thickest Skin Trait 3: Blood, Sweat, and Tears Trait 4: High Football IQ Trait 5: The Crib Factor (Was he born to be a QB?) Trait 6: Body Language Trait 7: The Charm Factor (Do his teammates love him? What do his teammates say about him, off the record? Spurs still hoping to sharpen areas before playoffs (ESPN.com) -“We’ve always only had one goal. That’s to be the best we can be by playoff time,” Popovich said. “We’ve never had any goals about winning games, or this, that or the other during the season; just try to keep improving and be the best you can be by the time the playoffs come. It’s never changed.”

Kevin Pelton (Locked On NBA) -It’s hard to separate the result from the process. One head coach of an NBA team barely says anything to his players after the game. They want to watch the tape and judge the process. Anything they say that close to the game will be so tied directly to the result. Whatever is Needed: answers the call for Boston (SI.com) -“I’ve hit that rookie wall a few times but it’s all mental,” Brown said. “I’ve got to be locked in everyday and be prepared to help this team... Scoring the ball, guarding different positions, I’m ready to do whatever is needed of me.”

How Tyler Johnson transformed from positionless player to crafty combo (SI.com) -Used “Powerhandz” to improve his handles. “Powerhandz” = weighted gloves with a slippery palm

He Wears His Heart on His Shorts (The Ringer) -“You gotta give Kevin a lot of credit,” Thompson says, “because, his style of play? He would fit in anywhere, and especially here. He fits so perfectly because he doesn’t need to dominate the ball to be a force. I think he’s averaging his least amount of attempts, maybe even in his career, but it might be one of his more efficient seasons.” ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Thompson’s perimeter play doesn’t just stand out on offense, however. A of his teammates and coaches are quick to point out that defensively, he has some of the most important assignments around the arc. After his rookie season, Thompson spent a month in the Bay Area working with coaches specifically on his defense. (“That helped a lot,” he says.) “He’s definitely in shape,” says Clark, “and he has to be, to be able to guard one, two, three, sometimes four men while switching. We do a lot of switching. He can guard both sides.” -“Klay is one of those guys,” Adams says, “who never gets enough credit for what he does. Let’s think about what he does. He guards, in many cases, the best perimeter player on the other team. Might be a point guard, might be an off-guard. So he has tremendous defensive responsibilities to begin a game. And he’s pretty much relentless from start to finish. Yeah, he’ll lose focus on a play or two, but it’s amazing the energy that he’s putting into the defensive end guarding a significant, if not the significant, player on the other team, as well as playing his offense.” -Last season, during the NBA Finals, Thompson told ESPN’s Zach Lowe that he remembers exactly who was taken before him in the draft — and that, in particular, he had a bone to pick with the , who thanks to a draft-day trade wound up with Jimmer Fredette at no. 10, one spot ahead of Thompson. “I considered myself the best shooter in that draft,” he told Lowe “so when someone took another shooter over me, it was a slap in the face.” -“I would categorize Klay as a very private player,” Adams says. “He’s emotional, but his emotions don’t always show themselves. He has some sort of internal process that he uses, so it makes it look like he’s pretty calm and collected — which he is, in many ways — but don’t think that there are not a lot of emotional juices flowing through that body.” -“I can handle the ball,” he says, “but the ball moves faster when you pass the ball than it does when you’re dribbling.” -But Kerr is also praises Thompson’s defense. “In general,” he says, “what I’d like to say about Klay is his defense is so important to us, putting pressure on the ball.”

Mike Conley Rewards Grizzlies’ Faith With a Career Season (New York Times) -This season, the first-year coach asked even more of Conley, starting with having him coach a quarter in a preseason game. The switch in roles was not a stunt or a lark. Fizdale wanted Conley to understand the role he wanted from him as a leader. “He’s really tried to embrace that for me and take his aggressiveness up another level,” Fizdale said. “He is truly the glue to this whole thing connecting everyone, and he does it without an ego.” -Conley feels as if he is ready. “I’m better for having had the pressure of the contract and having the opportunity and the responsibility to lead this team,” he said.

ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

With Rigor and Mystique, Nebraska Builds a Bowling Dynasty (New York Times) -Instead of telling recruits how awesome they are, how they will help Nebraska win, Straub entices them with a promise: He will make them better, if they allow him. Some are unwilling to subject themselves to Straub’s approach to player development, with an emphasis on fundamentals so rigorous that its detractors call it Clonehusking. -So he takes out that spread from Golf Digest and asks a skeptical parent or their daughter to examine it. These may be the 50 best golfers, he might say, but together they look like one — with a perfect swing. “There is a way to play,” Straub said in an interview here last month. “If you can believe that bowling is golf with a bigger, heavier ball, then you’re on the same page as I am. I’m trying to make it as simple as possible.” -“You might be the best, or among the best, but you come here, with so many accomplished bowlers, it’s a real ego check,” Morris said. -Gazmine Mason, a senior from Cranston, R.I., said she rebelled as a freshman. “Coach isn’t going to change for one person,” she said. “You come here and don’t like it, you find a way to like it or you leave.” -Opposing coaches also stress fundamentals, just not the way Nebraska does. -“You have to be willing to give up parts of yourself that you didn’t realize you had to before,” said Briana Zabierek, a senior from Lockport, Ill. “It takes a certain level of maturity and openness to let yourself be vulnerable.”

Can This Man Revive the Yankees? (New York Times) -“Any time you survive in your job for an extended period, part of it has to be not only your ability, but your ability to communicate with your ownership,” said Dave Dombrowski, the president of baseball operations for the Boston Red Sox. “That has to be an extremely important part of the equation.” -“You’ve got to string together as many quality decisions as you can over time — a five-, six-, seven- year period — to put yourself in a championship-caliber conversation,” Cashman said. “If you make the wrong decisions, it can really pull you back.” -Cashman does not wear his rings and has never lifted a trophy. In 2009, when the players and several executives gathered on a podium behind second base to celebrate the Yankees’ return to glory, he watched from the field with his daughter, just another face in a happy crowd. For those who know Cashman, it was no surprise. Raised in the game under George Steinbrenner’s glare, he has always known better than to revel in accomplishment. “What I really admired about Brian was the fact that it was never about him,” said John Coppolella, the Atlanta Braves’ , who worked for the Yankees from 2000 to 2006. “He just seemed to care a great deal about the Yankees and getting things right for them.” ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

Sergio Garcia, and the triumph of a growth mindset (Golfworld) -The concept of fixed and growth mindsets was introduced by the Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck to help explain the various ways people confront challenge. By Dweck’s definition, the fixed mindset sees ability as largely predetermined, or “fixed.” If you win a race, it’s simply because you’re faster. A growth mindset accepts that skills can be learned and refined over time—if you lose a race you resolve to do better next time by working harder. -Although he won plenty of major titles when he was young, McEnroe had no mechanism for working through challenge when he began to lose with greater frequency. It was as if he burned through his allotment of talent and was now running on fumes. It explains why McEnroe won seven Grand Slam titles in a six-year period, but none after that. -“[McEnroe] did not thrive on challenges; when the going got rough, he often folded,” Dweck wrote in her book Mindset. “As a result by his own admission, he did not fulfill his potential.” -What has spared Garcia from a similar fate is that Garcia has learned to process challenge in a much more constructive way. By accepting the occasional bad outcome, by learning to embrace his failures rather than rail against them, Garcia hasn’t just “matured,” as we like to say. He's adopted the principles of a growth mindset. -He talked about how he’s better at “accepting” bad breaks. He used phrases like “room for improvement” and said when it came to his development, he was only getting started. Most important, when asked what provided him this breakthrough, Garcia didn’t credit talent or ability. “It was just work,” he said. “Simple as that. It's just work at it.”

What it took for Sergio Garcia to finally win a major (Golfworld) -The reason was more centrally human, the vicarious fulfillment that comes from seeing a person who has spent years getting in his own way finally triumph over himself. Few players are perfect mentally, but Garcia as a golfer was seriously flawed. Over nearly two decades, he trafficked in all manner of negativity: excuse making, whining, blaming and defeatism. All while stubbornly refusing to see how he was sabotaging his extraordinary ability. -Instead of the experience making Garcia tougher, it seemed to start him down a steady decline toward fragility, to the point that at the 2012 Masters, he said, “I’m not good enough. … I don’t have the thing that I need to have to win majors.” -In retrospect, Garcia suffered the backlash that often confronts sports prodigies. Used to both overwhelming their competition with talent and generally getting their way, being thrown in with older peers with more competitive grit and more polished skills can be jarring, especially when the expectations that were thrust upon them so early are, if anything, adjusted up. -After Saturday’s 70, when he got a good break on a second shot that somehow stayed out of the water and led to a birdie on the par-5 13th, Garcia didn’t disagree that his new attitude was having ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

a role in the golf gods seeming to smile on him. “Probably it’s because my mentality has a changed a little bit, the way I’m thinking things,” he said. -On Sunday, he would describe his drive to the course as “very calm … I felt the calmest I’ve ever felt on a major Sunday.” -Upon making the putt that made him the player with the most career starts before winning a major and ended his reign as the best player without one, Garcia sank into a deep crouch reminiscent of Ben Crenshaw’s emotional reaction to his winning putt in 1995. Garcia said that as held that position with closed eyes, he thought about “some of the moments I’ve had here at Augusta that maybe I haven’t enjoyed as much and how stupid I really was trying to fight against something that you can’t fight. And how proud I was of accepting things. And this week, I’ve done that better than I ever had.”

These are the moments that Mike Babcock has been waiting for (TheStar.com) -“We’ll have to be as sharp as we’ve been all season, in terms of knowing what our assignments are, just because every play is magnified, and every mistake is magnified,” Hunwick says. “The only way as coaches and players you know how to do it is to do it right every single day. I think he wanted to install that work ethic and build that foundation last year, and obviously it’s carried over with the changes we’ve made this season.” -“They have to (have that),” Babcock says. “Because the pressure, the playoff atmosphere, the noise, everything’s swirling around you, and if you don’t have that foundation to go back to, this is what we did every day, this is what we did every game . . . you kind of just fall back on the good habits, the way you play, and you don’t have to think. Because there’s going to be so much stuff going on that sometimes it’s hard to think. You’ve just got to play and rely on the good habits you’ve formed. You go over and over a foundation of how to play, so in the big moments you do what you do.”

Adapt or Die: How Andy Toole dealt with college basketball’s transfer epidemic (FanRag) -“Unfortunately, it was probably something that we were trying to guard against for much of the season,” Toole said. “You hear rumors and people ask you questions. It was disappointing. You don’t want to inhibit somebody’s dreams, but you also understand it’s going to be harmful for your program. We didn’t do anything to try and stop Marcquise from being at the right spot, but we also tried to explain to him that we could be the right spot. If you’re good enough anywhere, people will find you. He obviously didn’t feel that way.” -“There’s not one day that goes by that makes me wish that I would have done something differently in terms of my own career,” Toole said. “I think what we’re trying to understand is that this is the way it is. We have to adapt. We have to continue to try and recruit the best players we ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

can. We have to continue to find ways to upgrade our program. The approach that you’re going to have to take is that you’re constantly going to be replacing guys if they’re really good at our level. As a coach and a staff, you have to be preparing for the fact that scholarships are one-year renewable agreements. You have to be constantly prepare for transfers and a changing roster on an annual basis.”

Wolves coach ‘coaches every dribble’ (Star Tribune) -In a season as consistently inconsistent as the Timberwolves' new coach anticipated, there has been one constant. That voice. Tom Thibodeau's players hear it — part growl, part seal's bark — from the opening tip to the final horn, no matter how big or small the deficit or lead. "Everybody hears him," Wolves forward Andrew Wiggins said with a smile. “You hear him the whole game. Whether we're up 20, down 20, it doesn't matter the circumstance." -Through it all, he has demanded of his players the same things — consistency, devoted preparation, pursuit of the truth — he asks of himself. -"That's the thing about coaching: There are a lot of different ways to do it," Thibodeau said. "The most important thing is to be true to yourself. You have to be who you are. My way is not the only way. There are a lot of good ways to do it. But if you try to be something you're not, it's never going to work." -Most NBA coaches don't coach, won't coach every moment from game's start to finish. "I don't want to coach every dribble, and that's not a knock on anybody," Malone said. "Thibs has had a lot more success than I have as a head coach. But for me, I think at some point you have to allow guys to play, to make mistakes. Now with that freedom comes responsibility and discipline and you hope they can handle it. But Thibs, that's who he is, as a coach and a man. You have to be who you are." -Thibodeau is a former fiery small college player and Harvard assistant who worked and willed his way into an NBA coaching career now approaching its fourth decade. He considers himself a product of all the head coaches — , Jeff Van Gundy, , — for whom he worked. -Thibodeau's presence might have extended Rivers' career — or at least his voice — when they won the 2008 title during three seasons together with Boston. "It was great. I didn't have to use mine," Rivers said. "I just sat there and let him call the defense. But that's what he does. … Every coach has a different way. Some sit with their legs crossed. Some get up and down. Some pick their spots. Some yell all game. You can be successful all those ways." -"First of all, they don't have a choice with him," New York's , who played on all those Bulls teams, said earlier this season. "It doesn't matter. You have to be demanding. It's hard to win in this league. You don't realize what you have with him until he's not around. He used to tell me that when I played for him because we used to butt heads all the time. I know he's somebody who works really, ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

really hard and really cares about winning. Our run in is something I'll never forget. They were some of the best times of my life." -Kerr calls it "attention to detail that probably is second to none." Kerr said he considers Thibodeau one of two coaches who most shaped the modern NBA game. Mike D'Antoni did it offensively in Phoenix, Thibodeau did it defensively as associate head coach for three seasons with the Celtics, including the 2008 champions. -"He puts so much thought and preparation into the game, you know he's putting you in the best possible position to win games," Wolves veteran center Cole Aldrich said. "That's what you really have to respect about the guy. He knows his stuff." -"It's about building a relationship, and I think you have to build trust and the only way you can build trust is through the truth," Thibodeau said. "I think players respect that. You take it day by day. You try to be as honest as you can be. I think people respect honesty and work. And that's what works." -"I always say I'm willing to work with whoever is going to make me the best I can be," said Lakers forward , a Thibodeau favorite when both were in Chicago. "It's not necessarily if I like it. Do I want to be successful? Do I want to be pushed? Some guys will not agree with it and do their own thing. Some guys just go with it and become better than they would have been with somebody else."

Malcolm Brogdon, the improbable Rookie of the Year choice (CBS Sports) -"I knew who I was coming into the NBA, so I knew what I could contribute to a team and I just had a high level of confidence in myself and what I could do," Brogdon said. "My best asset to my game is my IQ. I play the game thinking the game first." -Brogdon realized in middle school that he could outsmart his opponents. He looked up to crafty players like , and -- "the old Isiah Thomas," he clarified. Once he got to high school, it wasn't just about mimicking those stars; it was about understanding them. "For me the big thing was what are they working on -- not just what are they doing when the lights are on, but what are they doing when no one's watching, how are they training, how did they get this good?" Brogdon said. "And what you realize is a lot of guys were just working extremely hard. They were willing to push themselves to the limits that other guys weren't and be uncomfortable when they were training and working out. And that's what I started to do." -"I've always been labeled as not athletic enough and not explosive," Brogdon said. "You can just go down the line of all the critiques of my game coming up through high school and college. But honestly I think what you realize is there are a ton of people that are judging college players, high school players that are wrong. Their assumptions and how they label people is wrong. Guys aren't actually what the critics say they are -- they are actually, a lot of times, better and they actually can ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

do a lot more things than what the critics think they can do. I think guys are underestimated, I think guys are wrongly labeled all the time, and it's proven over and over. -More than any external validation, his teammates' trust in him said it all. "I think the biggest compliment they can give me is having the confidence in me at the end of games for me to have the ball and to make decisions and to create for them and to create my own shot and finish games," Brogdon said. "That's the biggest compliment I can get from anybody."

A behind-the-scenes look at game day (Oregonlive.com) -NBA players don't just show up a few minutes before tipoff, get dressed and play ball. In the modern NBA, game days are elaborate and structured, organized in a way that is designed to foster development, health and peak production. Each player, depending on his playing status and pecking order, uses a three-hour window before tipoff in different ways, going through a scripted routine developed through years of practice and persistence. -The Blazers' pregame is detailed down to the , with end-of-the-bench players like Pat Connaughton, and Tim Quarterman starting workouts at 4, and veteran players rotating in two at a time every 20 minutes, from 4:40 to 6:20. They work with an assistant coach, sometimes while support staff plays defense, and focus on everything from three-point shooting to ballhandling to post moves. All the while, behind the scenes, players lift weights, watch film, read scouting reports, eat, lie down for a massage and even sit for chapel. -When the players arrive at the practice facility on game days, they stop by the dining area for breakfast, then sit through a film session that usually begins around 10 a.m. After a relatively short look at film, players split up to lift weights, soak in the hot tub, outlast the cold tub and lounge in the steam room. Afterward, they nibble on a prepared lunch, then head home around noon. Before too long, they settle into perhaps the most cherished part of the NBA game-day routine: a nap. -While his teammates prefer a little light shooting at the practice facility during the team's morning , Turner has a different routine. "I just need time to focus by myself," he said. "Even in college, I was wary of who was in the gym and working out. I needed enough time to just find myself to work on my game. Same type of thing now. A lot of times, it's better for me to just shoot by myself in an empty gym to kind of get my focus right." -Lillard and CJ McCollum steady the Blazers' offense and have free rein to shoot. If they start slow, they can work themselves into a rhythm during the game. But Turner, who might see six or seven shot attempts, likes to try to get a good feel for his shot well before tipoff. -Before Layman arrived in Portland, he had no idea the NBA pregame was so all-consuming and elaborate. "I thought it was just ... guys get here and they play," the Blazers' rookie forward said. "I wasn't expecting this at all." ZAK BOISVERT – APRIL 2017 COACHING NOTES

-Things started to shift in the mid-1990s, coach said, after landed in the NBA as an assistant coach with the Seattle SuperSonics. Grgurich, who coached in college and the NBA for decades -- including with the Blazers -- and still runs a well-regarded summer camp for big men in Las Vegas, convinced those around him that spending time before games working out was a natural and sensible way to foster individual growth. Before Grgurich, when a player like Bird wanted an early sweat, he'd hop in a cab, talk his way into the arena and make ball boys shag rebounds for him. Now, when the Blazers play on the road, they have three buses that shuttle players, coaches and support staff in waves, departing at 4, 4:40 and 5:10 for games that start at 7. -The youngest players -- guys like Layman and Connaughton and Quarterman -- are always on the early bus. They start workouts three hours before tipoff, going through a series of two-on- two and one-on-one competition and other drills that range from working on their jumpers to improving ballhandling to defensive footwork. While Layman might focus on developing a , Connaughton might work on fine-tuning his midrange floater. Their workouts last twice as long as their teammates (about 40 minutes) and they sometimes run stairs afterward with assistant coaches to stay in shape. -Under Neil Olshey and Stotts, the Blazers have excelled at developing draft picks into capable NBA players. From Lillard to McCollum to Crabbe to Will Barton, the Blazers have shown a knack for grooming and nurturing talent. Most of them have spent time riding that first bus and working out in empty arenas across the United States. "I definitely feel like that time prepared me," Crabbe said. "When I was a rookie, coaches took me under their wing, taught me the ropes of the league and how to be a pro, even when I wasn't playing. I learned how to put in the work. Those workouts were my games. I had to go hard. This organization is great when it comes to player development." -"Over the course of the season it changes a little bit because you start to know where exactly you're getting shots at," Harkless says. "So that's what you try to focus more on." For veterans like Harkless, Leonard and Lillard, they craft their own pregame workout, discuss it with assistant coaches and, together, tweak it as necessary throughout the season. Lillard shoots pull-ups, catch-and-shoot three-pointers and plays some "light" one-on-one. Leonard spots up around the arc and mixes in midrange jumpers.

The last dance of Mamba (ESPN.com) -"When we got back into it, I said, 'OK, I've got one more push here,'" he says, "and the shots started going in toward the end and the game got closer and it was like, 'OK, I can't feel my legs, but I've got to have enough to knock one more down.' And then I knock one more down, and it's like, 'OK, I've got to have enough to knock one more down.”