APRIL 2018 COACHING NOTEBOOK – PICKANDPOP.NET The Raptors trusted Dwane Casey to remake his team without rebuilding it (SBNation) -“We felt like we were better than a 4-0 sweep,” Webster said. “It was really just Masai’s challenge to all of us. Let’s take a look at what we’ve done, and let’s be proud of how we’ve gotten here, but if we really wanna be a championship contending team, we need to make some changes.” -In the days following that low point, the Raptors’ internal braintrust burned the midnight oil to put Ujiri’s “culture reset” into action. When Webster and Ujiri asked Casey what he saw, they were, in Webster’s words, “exactly on the same page.” The league was passing the Raptors’ plodding, isolation style by. And so the mandate was born: more ball movement, more spacing, more running, and an increased focus on developing their young talent. -“[Culture reset] suggests that change is coming. But that doesn’t mean you have to change personnel,” Webster said. “People can change.” -When Ujiri demanded a “culture reset,” he issued a simple decree for every part of the organization: honest self-assessment. The result has been a season that challenges the sheer notion of putting a ceiling on human capability. What Villanova AD Mark Jackson Learned From Working for Bill Belichick (SI.com) -For interviews, Belichick gives a person a project to work on. Has a guy break down 4 games of an opponent. -ZB note: When this is done in CBB, it’s often “do a scouting report” and it really just becomes how many buddies does the guy have in the league who he can get a scouting report from? BB way: Break down just these 2-3-4 games and tell me about the team. I don’t want a scout, I want you breaking down this exact film. Tell me what this film tells you. -Rob Senderoff has guys on an interview put players through an individual workout. -The value of promotion from within has stuck with me. It’s the people that understand your culture and have grown up in your culture, and that’s Eric Mangini and Brian Daboll and Josh McDaniels. They paid their dues early on as quality control and went through that meticulous nature of all the film breakdowns. I definitely try to apply that here. I’m trying to APRIL 2018 COACHING NOTEBOOK – PICKANDPOP.NET invest in the younger people in our athletic department so that they understand our culture and can get brought up in that. -I don’t know where I can compare and contrast Jay to Bill, but what I can say is whether it’s Pete or Jay or Bill—and I’ve been around a lot of really good coaches—they know their philosophy. They know who they are. They know what they’re about. These are programs. These aren’t just teams. These are systems. They know every element of it, and they know what works, and they don’t deviate from it. Although they’re very different in styles, they’ve figured themselves out and they’re very, very confident in who they are. That’s the one commonality in the great coaches I’ve been around. -When [Carroll and former USC assistant Yogi Roth] wrote the book [Win Forever], that’s the key. If you’re gonna lead people, you have to figure out yourself first. You have to go through that self-discovery process. I figured it out. It wasn’t ’til I was around 35 and back at USC for a second time. Pete mandated it. ‘Hey, you gotta get serious about what you wanna do. Do you wanna be in the NFL? Do you wanna be an athletic director? Do you wanna pursue something entrepreneurially?’ It was that self-discovery process where I took a summer and just figured myself out that is really helping me out now as an athletic director. Playing for Pop (San Antonio Express-News) “I said, ‘Pop, you want me to get to this spot and then get all the way back to that spot?’” Elliott recalled. “He said, ‘Well if you can’t do it, I’ll get somebody else who can.’” -If young players are not aware of his style, they will quickly be told of Popovich’s passion for getting the most out of players for the good of the team. And then, they’ll be informed of the armor needed to endure it all. “You have to have a thick skin, that’s for sure,” Elliott said. “You have to park your ego, and you have to realize that you can’t take things personally. That’s the biggest thing. -Parker had felt Popovich’s wrath earlier in his career and offered Ginobili the same advice Tim Duncan gave Parker. “I was like, ‘Be patient. He’s going to see you do way more positive stuff than just that crazy pass you just did. At the end of the day, he’s a great coach, and I think he’s going to APRIL 2018 COACHING NOTEBOOK – PICKANDPOP.NET see that,’” Parker said. “And it took some time for Pop to get used to it too because we were a halfcourt team when I first arrived. It was all for Timmy and David (Robinson). We had to evolve as everybody was evolving. Slowly but surely, Pop gave more stuff to me, more stuff to Manu, more responsibility. … It took a little bit to find that happy middle.” -Pau Gasol hears Popovich’s voice even when he’s not speaking. He reminds himself always about how to play solid, with edge, competitiveness and execution. Playing smart and playing hard. It’s what Popovich calls playing between the ears. -“What he likes about guys are the basic things,” assistant coach Ime Udoka said. “Things you learn in middle school, in the eighth grade. And then the other part is egoless people. If you’re not a superstar, if you’re not a Tim, Tony, Manu, Kawhi, those guys, then he wants a well-rounded team player with fundamentals. But you have to be mentally tough.” -Asked if every player could play for Popovich, Elliott responded: “Not everybody can. There are a few guys that are in the league. They’ve been around a long time and are set in their ways. They don’t like a coach being this demanding. And some guys just don’t have the mental makeup for it.” Smooth Operator: Dwane Casey Is Still Ironing out Every Wrinkle He Can Find (SI.com) -Seven years ago on Biscayne Bay, he implemented a defense that helped change the sport, forcing teams to reevaluate conventional lineups, stilted sets and the definition of a good shot. This season he finally joined the freewheeling movement he spawned, and the Raptors sit atop the East. -“You can’t allow yourself to get typecast as a recruiter, because that label sticks and carries,” Casey continues. “I fought it. I made myself learn the game and teach the game.” -When Toronto acquired Miles in July, Casey called him that night and chatted for almost an hour, describing ways he could use the sniper as an inbounder. “You could tell he’d already been thinking about specific plays,” Miles says. -Casey landed in Dallas as a defensive coordinator, with more aging stars, and he wanted to devise a zone the Mavericks could use like an eephus pitch. P---y defense, players grumbled, and point guard Jason Kidd abandoned the zone if it allowed a basket. At APRIL 2018 COACHING NOTEBOOK – PICKANDPOP.NET training camp in ’10, Casey told the Mavs they were going to build the best zone in the league, and grousing continued. “I like to lock up, man-to-man,” Shawn Marion said. “Trust me,” Casey replied. “We’re going to need this at some point.” The Mavericks spent 10 minutes on zone slides at every practice and deployed the zone for an entire preseason game in Chicago. Still, they used the zone sparing during the regular season, until the Finals against Miami. The Mavs had no one to match up with LeBron James and Dwyane Wade. Dallas was too old, too slow and too small in the backcourt. “It was finally time to whip out that f------ zone,” recalls former Mavs guard Jason Terry. Dallas alternated between a 2–3 and a man-to-man defense in which they sank guards to the elbows and bigs to the boxes. “Miami ran iso like 80% of the time with LeBron and D-Wade,” Terry recounts. “You beat me, here’s another guy waiting. You beat him, here’s Tyson Chandler waiting. There was nowhere to isolate and nowhere to kick out. Remember, they didn’t have Ray Allen then. LeBron had to shoot jump shots. And what was LeBron’s weakness at the time? Eighteen foot jump shots.” -“That zone made me a better coach,” Miami’s Erik Spoelstra told Casey. The Heat captured the next two titles, trumpeting pace and space; the Spurs and the Warriors won the two after that, touting the same. “Everything was different,” Terry says. “It was all about movement and shooting.” -Casey revisited his Dallas days and dusted off elements of Rick Carlisle’s system, called Flow. “It’s not so many play calls for Kyle, play calls for DeMar,” Casey explains. “It’s more random pick-and-rolls, move the ball side-to-side, read and react.” Bob Brown, Philadelphia 76ers -“Years ago, we (the Spurs) coached Robert Horry,” Sixers Coach Brett Brown said.