DEVELOP THE PLAYERS 1 TROUGH

THE OFFENSIVE SYSTEM

“Steps to success”

Alessandro Magro

Contents

Introduction: the coach’s Role 3

Offensive system 5

1. What principles do we follow? 5 2 2. The system we want to play with under 16 teams 6

3. What goals do we want to achieve with this system? 10

4. How do we work to prepare that offense? 11

5. How to use the dribble 11

6.Playing far away from the ball 12

7. Co-operating and sharing 12

8. What goals do we set for Under 18 team? 15

9. How do we work on situations of screens and pick and roll? 19

10. Attacking the zone defense 21

11. Last step before the senior team: Under 20 21

Conclusion 23

References list 24

“I, Magro Alessandro , hereby declare that this submission is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it contains no material previously published or written by another person.” INTRODUCTION : THE COACH'S ROLE

Basketball is a sport not for coaches but for players who are the main protagonists ; they are like actors performing on a stage, and thanks to their talent, they make basketball a sport which is fascinating and continuously developing. 3 This is the first concept that a coach should always keep in his mind, our constant goal. We coaches have to know that we do not owe the game, just like we do not owe the players we coach.

This is our vocation and our only goal and target is to guide and to lead the practice, either the technical and the tactical one, in order to allow our athletes to express their talent at the highest level as possible.

Especially those who deal with the youth sectors can not and should not do it for their own satisfaction, but they have to remember that our only goal is to raise players that will be “coachable”, independent and complete in the future.

No coaches in the world enjoy to lose games and all the coaches, from my point of view, have to be ambitious and self confident if they want to make something big, but at the same time wins are not the term of comparison to judge their daily work.

During the coaching period which goes from 15 to 20 years of age, what they boys learn, whether good or bad, will stay inside them forever, that is why later it will be more difficult to teach them new skills and new habits.

That is the reason why we have to work with the guys in order to provide them an example to follow. The way we guide them, the way we coach them on the court during weeks of practices or during games will represent the way these players will act when they will step on the court and will do the thing they love the most: playing basketball.

The system should be considered just like a “fluid” where they are immersed, it should be a guide and a support but at the same time it should let them feel free to move, to figure

out new opportunities and ways in order to solve problems, to find out, to try, to mistake and to correct.

Along this process the role of the coach is observing, suggesting, correct their course, by being strict, severe but without obliging.

We have to make them be aware of what we are going through together because the process of improvement of a team is made first by an individual improvement of the people composing the team; and the individual improvement is caused by the understanding of 4 the guys of what we are doing, of what our common goals are and what motivations push us to achieve those goals.

The coaches will have to feel satisfied when they will see their players improving and growing up day by day, and won't have to feel down if that improvement will arrive late but they will have to behave a gardener who keeps on watering his plants until he will see the first flowers come out.

The path towards the improvement is long and tough to go along to together and to share between coaches, players and the staff.

Our system of playing is like a vehicle and thanks to it we have the chance to try to reach our “destinations”, even the furthest ones.

Coach Krzyzewski says in his book Leading with the heart that we have to consider every season like a journey, and every journey like a piece of life. Every season is a journey to begin with your team planning together your long-term or short-term and individual or common targets; never denying the chance to dream of impossible ones because that's the only way to exceed the limits.

Dealing with youth teams, as I see it, it s not all about teaching the technical or tactical aspects of the game, although they will be important for the future of the players, but also educating, teaching, moulding through personal values and ideals, in order to raise men first than basketball players.

“Always keep Ithaca in your mind, to arrive there is your ultimate goal” ( cit. Kavafis) 1 , in basketball such as in life we have to fix goals that motivates us, we have to find the

1 Ithaca- Kostantinos Kavafis

strength to start the journey in order to try to reach them and then whenever we will stop and whatever we will find when we will get at the destination, what will really and always matter will be the journey we had...thinking that in any case it was and it will be always worthy.

OFFENSIVE SYSTEM 5 WHAT PRINCIPLES DO WE FOLLOW?

Let me remind you that we consider our system like a “fluid” where we want to immerge our players in, it's a tool we use to guide and support our technical-tactical teachings for our players.

At the early age of 15 or 16 I believe that teaching them how to be independent is our job, they have to learn how to handle the ball, to handle the space they have to move into, in relation to the ball and to their teammates and to their opponents that are playing on the court against them in that very moment.

For this reason I like to think of a system that helps them and pushes them to figure out ad recognize different and various solutions in order not to be obliged to look for one- movement executions. This is a system where all the players have to be involved simultaneously and have to make themselves useful and/or “dangerous”.

The passwords that will guide us along the path that leads from the Under 16 team to the Under 20 team will be initiative, respect and co-operation.

In each offensive system everything begins when you take an advantage on the defense and the most natural way for the guys to get that advantage is to penetrate to the basket.

Therefore my first goal will be to have players that will be able to handle the ball and to be able to get the advantage through the dribble.

Each athlete, by beating his own opponent with a 1vs1 (initiative) automatically creates situations of advantage which will have to be maintained later and finally finalized and achieved..

The respect is showed towards the teammate's initiative, so that, by playing system of “readings” , each guy has to understand what his teammate is doing and in relations to his movement he has to be able to react.

Co-operation means that each player will have to be in the condition to receive the ball and to maintain the advantage created by the initiative and end up with the common objective which is create the best shot for the team.

Underlining the situations of penetrate and kick not only you teach them technical skills to 6 chose the right time and right way to have an assist or the way to use the time and the space when and where to be ready and free to receive the ball, but at the same time you teach your players that they have to share the ball and that with the passing of the time they have to develop the skill to be available to pass the ball. Later passing the ball will become a pleasure, something they will enjoy after having understood his power and importance.

THE SYSTEM WE WANT TO PLAY WITH THE UNDER 16 TEAMS

The objective of every offense is to make a basket, for this reason we have to expect our players to run on fastbreak as much as possible in order to create the highest number of situations of overnumber as possible in order to provide a greater number of situations with a very high percentage of efficiency.

Running on fast-break or attacking the opponent's rim should become, with the passing of the time, a mental attitude and to make it happen, the first situation we need to work on is the attitude for the transition (skills that means passing from offense to defense and vice- versa quickly).We want our guys to be able to use all the length and the width of the court while playing, because they will have to give importance to the space since the beginning, a fundamental aspect for the success of any offense.

Diag.1 fastbreak spacing

7 Diag.2 spacing in transition

We want our players to be quick in turning an offensive situation into a basket on fastbreak; to do that we need the ball to arrive as fast as possible to the dribbler, while all the other 3 players has to think about “open” the court diagonally and running along the sidelines , to create diagonal passing lines in order to have the chance to get to the basket with 3 passes, without dribbling (diag.1).

In case there was no chance to pass the ball our playmaker will take the position of one of our 2 guards (extension of the elbow) and the other players will place themselves along the three point line, leaving the area free for our “trailer”; in alternative, if the player in the wing spot on the side of the ball decided to cut, because he was anticipated, we would have a different alignment on the court (for instance 3 outside and 2 inside, Diag. 3), always respecting the space that separates the 5 players on the court.

After having tried to surprise the opponents' defense with basic fast-breaks and pushing hard with the transition, we place our offense at the half court and we start READING the situations (8” to run, 8” organize, 8”to finalize, Coach Pesic).

The alignment of our offense comes straight from the offensive transition, and it is its natural prosecution, the only difference is that our #5 is in different positions : low pivot strong side, high post, low pivot weak side (diagr. 3).

8 Diag. 3 Offensive alignment

This is to give our player the possibility to choose what area of the court to attack according to the advantage over the defense and through this choice establish the open space that will have to be filled by the other players.

If our #5 has decided to attack the area of the low pivot on the side of the ball we would have immediately had a situation of advantage inside the three point line.

Diag. 4 entry pass+ ball inside Diag. 5 Top pass + motion

The alternative to passing the ball inside (diag 4) is passing the ball to the players who replaced out PG's cut to create consistency on the weak side of the backdoor cut + clear out giving birth to a great combinations of movement of readings (diag. 5).

After changing side we can obtain situation of post-up of the guard after the back door cut, dynamic 1vs1 on one quarter of the court by the play-maker , give and go between the player on the top and the player on the side, consistency once again with the flash on the weak side of our #5, who usually, every time receiving the ball isn't possible, has to follow the ball with diagonal flashes up/down or down/up (diag. 6).

9 With the ball in the hands of our center on the top to play like a pivot we will be able to create bilateral situations of backdoor and replacing, rather than exchanges between the ESTERNI and also the possibility to let one of our point-guards stop in the area of the low pivot to take advantage of the back-to-the basket situations. (diag. 7).

Instead if our center has decided to use the weak side, after running on fast-break from one rim to the other rim, we would have had different spacings and different opportunities to develop our play.

Diag. 8 center on the weak side Diag. 9 Pinch post motion

Chance for our guard of clear-out 1on1 (diag. 8) and during the development of the play the chance to take advantage of the mid positions of “pinch post” (diag. 9) in order to start dangerous cuts, replaces , dynamic 1vs1 situations or situations of post up of the guards after cuts (diag. 10)

10 Diag 10. Cut + post up guard Diag. 11 Center playing the high post

Like the last chance of initial alignment we can have a situation where the center is on the free-throw line and all the other players are placed upwards the free-throw line (Princeton alignment), in order to create direct 1vs1 or backdoor cuts after defensive leads.

Even in this case, the use of the center as pivot of our offense will be fundamental in order to start deep cuts towards the rim from both sides of the court, to help reversal/overturn create dynamic situations of front 1vs1 or back 1vs1, and co-operation between 2 players to play give and go. (Diag. 12-13)

Diag.12 clear out or cut-replace Diag. 13 ball on the top + backdoor

You can notice that the plans on the court are various thanks to the great variety of options that players can decide to use during the play, but the basic co-operations that will arise from them are always very similar to each other and we do want to work on them during practices to learn how to handle the individual and team techniques and tactics that will make our offense tougher and more efficient.

WHAT GOALS DO WE WANT TO ACHIEVE WITH THIS SYSTEM?

It is easy to assume that the use of this “simple” system can provide different aspects of a game, that according to my point of view, are the basements to have a high-level athlete. We want to teach our players how to :

• Attack 1vs1 creating advantages by dribbling • Be able to react to one's teammates' penetrations with internal and external spacings • Learn how to play by using the physical contacts to gain position close to the 11 basket. • Be able to space on the court when the ball is on low pivot or in the middle area such as (high post – half corner). • Learn hot to play without the ball These principles are and will always be the basement of my basketball programs, besides, obviously, adding technical and tactical concepts with the passing of the time and with the development of their skills and their experiences.

HOW DO WE WORK TO PREPARE OUR OFFENSE?

Our offense in its globality is based on 2 fundamental concepts such as the use of the penetrate and kick and playing with cuts and replacements. Apparently the things they have in common are just a few ones but then if you analyze them carefully you will be able to understand how these 2 ways of playing , diametrically opposed , can live together if at the basement we can give importance to the way we use the dribbles and to our skills to play without the ball.

HOW TO USE THE DRIBBLE

The ball is something precious and important and the first thing that crosses our young boys' mind when they have the ball in their hands is dribbling.

Our target is to teach them that there are different ways of dribbling but in our system only 3 of them are allowed :

• the dribble you use to attack the rim (diag.14) • the dribble you use to go far from the defensive pressure (diag.14)

• the dribble you use to create passing angles and to start back-doors (diag.14)

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Diag. 14. Rules to use the dribbles

The next step is managing the ball and the dribble and the phase that i love to call phase of co-operation / sharing phase . To allow my teammate to pass me the ball in order to maintain the advantage or to receive the ball and finalize it, i need my players to develop the great skill of moving without the ball .

The 80% of our offenses is executed without the ball, for the simple and corny reason that only one player out of five will have the ball while attacking, that's why the quality of our play far away from the ball will strongly influence the quality of the play of our team.

PLAYING FAR AWAY FROM THE BALL

We want to give our players responsibilities and we also want to make them sensitive to this aspect of the game so that they will be more efficient when it is about :

• to get open and replace (diag.15) • to use the backdoor cut or the shuffle to receive the ball or take the position back to the basket . (diag. 16 – 17) • spacing and cuts after a penetration

Diag. 15 get open – cut & replace Diag. 16 backdoor+ post up

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Once they have learnt the importance of dribbling only in certain moments of the game and the need of developing the skill of being efficient without the ball ; we can pass to the next step, as to say, putting together the 2 aspects with the co-operation which are going to be the heart and the basements of our offensive system throughout the program.

CO-OPERATING AND SHARING

Our offense allows all the players to be “dangerous” during its phase since all of them have the chance to score in order to be unpredictable and hardly analyzable. We want our players to understand the importance of passing the ball correctly at the right moment and with the right technique, in order to permit a teammate to score or to take an extra-pass to keep the advantage over the defense (we work on the extra-passes a lot).

To practice the penetrate and kick we usually prepare exercises / plays using 3 or 4 players (3vs0 + 3vs3 and 4vs0 + 4vs4) and they include spacing between the guards and the player inside.

Diag. 18. Penetrate and kick baseline spacing Diag. 19. Penetrate and kick middle spacing

Playing according to the principles of respect and cooperation we want to see our players to move without the ball in order to create space for a penetration for the teammate who decided to attack the rim and at the same time to create enough space in case he decided to pass the ball, we set the rule of playing with at least a player that attacks the rim, a player on the path of the ball and a safe pass behind the ball and so that one teammate will always be free and ready to receive the ball (diag. 18-19).

Once our players “have forgotten” the ball we have to force them to keep on moving to 14 place themselves in open space so that they can me offensively dangerous while the rest of the teammates will have follow the passes and reduce the passing lines and guarantee the possibility of taking an extra-pass (diag.20-21).

Diag. 20. Players move for extra passes Diag.21. using dribble to create short passing lines

Despite the teaching techniques (after having worked on 1vs1 exercises and 1vs1 with coach from dribble) during the learning phase I always prefer to play with these situations ah half court 3vs3 or 4vs4 letting the offense start with a situation of advantage and obliging the defense to help on the ball and leaving open spaces to the offense.

As regards playing without the ball we are very interested in working on “motion “ situations of our offense (Maccabi motion), of backdoor and replace(diag.22), and after that the chance to play with the post-up of the guard who cut before and consequent spacing of the other 2 players (diag.23), maintaining the rule that one players always has to attack the rim and the other teammates have to place themselves outside the three- point line.

Diag.22 Maccabi motion: backdoor + replace Diag.23 Post up guard after backdoor+ spacing

While preparing the plays for the practice even in this case we work on situations like 3vs3 or 4vs4 supported by the coach, limiting the dribble of the offense (no bounce or maximum 15 1 or 2 bounces after receiving the ball) to help the player be free from marking while without the ball and look for cuts to put the ball close to the basket (diag.24-25)

Diag.24 4vs4+coach getting open drill Diag.25 Ball in low post+weak side action drill

Simultaneously we develop weak-side actions with the ball in low pivot and we give continuity to the cuts towards the rim and replaces and the flash of the big guy towards the ball, creating once again give and go situations(diag.26), backdoors and Maccabi motion on the opposite side (diag. 27).

Diag.26 Big men flash to the high post-Give and go Diag.27 Maccabi motion on weak side

I firmly believe that teaching 14/15/16-year-old boys to run on fast-break being as much aggressive as possible, respecting the room they have while playing, working on situations of offensive overnumber, handling the transition phases; paying attentions to the parts of the game that involve situations of 1vs1 with ball (being able to beat your own opponent), 1vs1 without the ball (being able to move into the space in order to free oneself from marking, to play backdoor, or to play give and go) and finally to guide them with moments of cooperation for example while penetrate and kick, cuts or cuts and replace that I mentioned before; they players have enough information to show their talent but at the 16 same time respecting their teammates and the game.

Therefore we just put the basements we need to “build up” our offense that will be increased, enriched and fortified during the next age bracket.

WHAT GOALS DO WE SET FOR THE UNDER 18 TEAMS?

When they are 18, boys grow up physically and athletically but at the same time they need to grow up also from the point of view of their technical and tactical knowledge of the game.The system is still the same, we will just add a series of situations, based on the previous collaborations, that will see the use of the screens far from the ball, screens on the ball or hand-off situations (that we consider just like p/roll situations).

This way the great variety of plays without the ball will be definitively increased since we will tech them the technique to set a screen, the technique to take advantage of a screen, and the different ways players can place themselves on the court and their relative readings coming from those collaborations.

In theory, by playing those situations with screens, we go against the rules of spacing we fixed before because we put more than one player in the same position, “killing” the offensive spacing for this reason it's very important to create the right advantages for the player who will set the screen and for the one who will suffer the screen; they will be the cause of that overcrowded area of the court.

The rule that will lead our players inside our system will be very simple, what before was a cut or a situations of switch could be turned into a screen. This way you can easily assume

that the different kinds of screens far away from the ball can be various : cross screen, screen away and pin down.

This is valid also for all the situations involving flashes of the center towards the ball, that will include receiving the ball on top to start backdoor situations could end up with situations of hand-off or p/roll (diag.27-28).

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Diag.27 Pinch post action Diag.28 Side dribble hand off action

Screens far from the ball or on the ball are the heart of every important basketball program or every successful offensive system.

At a higher or at the senior level screens far from the ball and the p/roll are always a dominating part of the teams' playbook, this is why I believe that when the players deeply know those co-operations is remarkably important.

If we carefully observe our offensive alignment we can start to see how it is possible to create situations of isolation of our center back to the basket; only by allowing those cuts to be completed with some cross screens under the basket, either straight from the transition (diag.29) and with the Maccabi continuity (diag.30) or we can see how it is possible to continue to play with screens when the ball will be in the low pivot positions, in the hands of a guard and a big men.

18 Diag.29 cross screen 1-5 in transition Diag.30 Maccabi motion: cross screen option

This way we are going to enrich the variety of movements that are part of the weak side action(diag.31), since it is possible to put from the top not only cuts towards the basket but also blind screens for the strong side o diagonal screens for the weak side(diag.32).

Diag.31 Weak side action using screen Diag.32 High post action using screen

Beside this we could also use our #5 in the central positions on the court, letting him set screens in order to help his teammates receive the ball dynamically towards the rim or isolations back to the basket(diag 33-34).

Diag.33 Screen between guards in the corner Diag.34 Screen between guards in the top

Finally we will be able to develop the skill of setting a screen far away from the ball every time we will dish the ball to our offensive pivot in the middle situations (pinch post-elbow) with screen point-guard on point-guard that will provide advantages thanks to cuts,screens situations for shooters or in case the defense decided to play with defensive switches we could play in order to “punish” those switches.

The next step concerns the chance to create situations of central or lateral hand-off or p/roll. The variety of plays between 2 players that could arise will be a lot such as: p/roll or 19 hand-off between guards(diag.35) or guards and bigs (diag.36). Every time our center will decide to do flashes in high post, he will be able to decide whether to stay in his area to receive the ball and start those co-operations, adding a dribble hand-off option, or to go straight to stop the ball and play central or lateral p/roll (diag 37-38).

Diag.35 Screen between guards in the corner Diag.36 Screen between guards in the corner

Diag.37 Middle p/roll situation Diag.38 Side p/roll situation

These are just some plans that we could use during the game, the important thing for coaches like us will be working in order to make them understand the offenses that involve

screens; since they can't be linked to a right execution of the single basic movement or to a perfect spacing on the court of all the 5 players.

At the basement of our offense we always have the defensive reading, we never should decide in advance what we want to do; what we will do will be a consequence of what we'll come from the defense. That's the only way we will be able to improve, only this way we will be hardly stoppable.

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HOW DO WE WORK ON SITUATIONS OF SCREENS AND PICK AND ROLLS?

The first and main thing I want my players to understand is the importance of the screen. Being able to set a screen correctly isn't less important than shooting well or passing the ball well, since the players who can set good screens create big advantages for their team and also for themselves.

More and more often we work with boys who are afraid of body contacts. This aspects must be analyzed and studied because it will be the first serious problem to face; a player who is afraid of physical contacts will never set good screens.

The first exercises they will have to learn will be looking for, preparing and taking advantage of contacts. After this we can work on situations of offensive overnumber, setting screens on the ball and screens far away from the ball, where the defender of the player who is setting the screen without its defender, so that he will understand what kind of advantage it is possible to obtain with a good screen.

We give importance and we pay a lot of attention to the playing who is preparing the screen with movements in opposition, and the player who has to set the screen, being careful to hit the shoulder of the defender and read the offensive behavior to change the corner of the screen.

During the play we practice on situations of 2vs2 + coach, 3vs3 + coach, 4vs4, according to our system, to underline the importance of the other players on the court whose goal is to create triangles to maintain and to finalize the advantages gained after and thanks to the screens.

21 Diag.39 Drill to get open Diag.40 Weak side action using screen

Here you have some examples of the situations we want to re-create during practices in order to work both on the plays without the ball while the player is trying to free himself and on the plays without the ball while cutting or setting screens (you'll always have a player close to the rim and another one on the opposite position), and on the co-operations between screens/dho + consequent spacings (diag. 39-40-41-42).

Often in order to provide a movement without the ball we want to play the whole action without dribbling or, to stress the idea of 5vs5 plays and not 2vs2 ones, we deny the dribble after the screen, so that they are obliged to create passing lines and a kind of net made by cuts, passes, triangles in order to score a basket.

Diag.41 top p/roll + spacing Diag.42 Side p/roll + spacing

ATTACKING THE ZONE DEFENSE

With this age bracket we start facing a new topic : the zone both in offense and in defense. We get to this topic even if we have already “met” it before thanks to technical and tactical experiences that allows us, thanks to certain concepts that we have been trying to provide to these boys so far, to approach games with the same aggressiveness against any kind of

defense played by the opponents, since we have worked on concepts and not on movements. This will force the boys to recognize the open spaces they can attack, they will be able to decide whether to stop in dangerous areas (high post – low pivot/ half corner) to receive or to go and set screens on the ball to start co-operations of penetrate and kick and they will have to move all together to re-create the best spacings as possible. This is the reason why we don't want to have particular offenses against the zone defense but we want to adjust our system to it.

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LAST STEP BEFORE THE SENIOR TEAM : UNDER 20

Coaching the U20 team is like coaching small senior teams. The psycho-physic and technical-tactical side of these boys is so developed that we can consider them like young men. Often those who play in the U20 teams are also asked to play with the Senior teams.

At this level, I think, we should keep on working hard in order to make the athlete improve from the physical and technical point of view and we should contribute to his tactical knowledge in order to provide him all the tools necessary to be ready to play at high levels.

When we get to this age, in my program, our play system will turn out to be our passing game, as to say the basic offense, the prosecution of our offensive transitions and it willrepresent our parachute in case of difficulties, since it is a system that we have known and used for years.

The playbook will be enriched with sets with clear goals (temporary), special situations, made up by principles based on concepts we have worked on for years, whose goal will be “turning on” certain players in certain moments of the game.

Athletes on the court will constantly have to figure out the strenght and the weak points of the opponents and will have to be ready (with the support of their coach) to stress every defensive gap. For this reason our playbook will become various and will include different and special situations : post up center or PF, post up guards, shooters off the screens, side p/roll guards or pgs, Middle p/roll guards or pgs, offense vs the zone.

We want our players to learn how to mix the play of the system with the play with goals, we don't want them to lose their aggressiveness while playing all those situations of 1vs1

with or without the ball, or to forget the importance of the spacings on the court and the co- operations. Being dangerous in every moment of the action will be our must any offense we'll play because we want not only a team disciplined while executing our offense but at the same time we don't want to change our nature and we don't want to quit playing by reading the defense and by becoming easily predictable.

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CONCLUSION

In life those who have the chance to do what they love to do should consider themselves blessed, for this reason I believe that we basketball coaches, since we love this sport so much, should consider ourselves so.

Junior teams coaches, moreover, have a huge honour and a huge burden because they have the possibility to guide young athletes during their most important coaching years of their life, they have the possibility to leave inside them a mark that will never go away. We have a powerful and a very important work to do.

I think that working for the youth sector is a vocation and at the same time I think that every coach should have the chance to be prepared, updated and has to expect the best from himself in order then to go and expect the same from his players. He has to manage the teaching methods at his best in order to make the learning easier for the guys ; he has to know correctly what he teaches, the future of our sport is in his hands. He should be

aware that often we limit the players' talent with our work or at least we make it get better more slowly, damaging them.

But I also believe that at the end of a program made for the junior teams, the boys, who have been coached to get better depending on their skills, who have been coached to be able to face the world of the senior teams, should come out from this unique experience enriched.

We coach and educate men before players, we coach with our heart and with passion, not only with our technique, because at the end of the trip, wins or number of baskets scored won't make the difference alone, the trip itself will be what really matter. We should inspire 24 dedication and ambition and tell them to use them in everything they do, let them know that everything has a price and they have to be ready to make sacrifices if they want to do something great, and that they will have to be ready to suffer next to their teammates. We give our best and we give it to them, if we make them feel our feelings, our emotions they will follow us everywhere.

One of the most beautiful memory I have concerning my experience as head coach of the junior sector is after having won the second Italian championship in a row with the same team, and these memories are not related to the happiness of that very moment or to the satisfaction of seeing my players celebrating for the win, but the best memory I have concerns the words of the captain of the team who, while hugging me tight, said : “Thanks for helping me become a man”.

REFERENCES LIST

Mike Krzyzewski and Donald T. Phillips. (2000). Leading with the heart: Coach K’s successful strategies for basketball, business, and life. New York: Warner Books

Konstantin Petrou Kavafis. “Ithaca” poem

Transition from a game: Pini Gershon (Head Coach). Maccabi Tel Aviv . 2003/2004. Final 4 Euroleague Maccabi Tel aviv vs Fortitudo Bologna

Eddie Jordan and Pete Carrill, (2009). Princeton offense. NBA Coaches Playbook: Techniques, Tactics, and Teaching Points (Chapter 7) USA: NBCA Sheridan Books

Pesic Svetislav, Discussion Group. Fecc course July 2010(2 nd year). Vilnius

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