happy to connect you all with Darko rajakovic who is currently an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns he has also been an assistant coach with Oklahoma City Thunder a head coach of the g league and also is very involved with the serbian national program where he's an assistant coach coach welcome to the podcast thank you Chris it's my big honor to be part of the podcast I've been following your work and for a long time you know each other personally for a long time and I got to give you a credit for doing amazing job and for our coaches community this podcast and the whole platform of bustable immersion that means so much for us thank you for for sharing basketball with us well thanks for saying that and that's one of the reasons I'm so excited because I've got to know you I'm very excited that we can share more of you with the world as well and sometimes it's hard to get access with some NBA coaches but you've always been very willing to talk discuss and share and I'm grateful for that and today we're gonna talk about offensive identity can you talk a little bit about what that means to you absolutely so this year when we established our coaching staff with coach Monty Williams in Phoenix Suns we had long discussions over the summer what do we want our team to look like and for in order for that we had to describe our identity what kind of identity we wanted to create and after doing our homework scouting our players you know establishing roster getting to know guys talking to players and just knowing the current state of the team and what we needed to do to move the team in the right direction we came up with five things that we really believe that's gonna help us to move the needle with our team and we described our offensive identity as playing basketball with 0.5 which means making quick decisions in point 5 seconds make a shot put the ball on the floor drive it make a pass you got to make quick decisions there is no holding on the ball there is no playing a lot of ISO ball and we just wanted to play fast second thing was pain to great we all know the importance of getting to the paint and getting great shots and when we create advantage we wanted to finish at the rim but indifference would go into rotations or committed to an odd ball we wanted to have paint too great to create better shot next layer to our offensive identity was good to great we did not want to just to get good shots we wanted to get great shots and we really believe in two equal opportunities on our team and we wanted up to put our guys in a situation they they're going to have freedom and to make quick decisions and to play for each other and to create best shots available fourth player was execution we wanted our guys to play together but to play inside certain principles rules not sets but rules and then one thing that we really believe is going to move the middle for our team was limiting turnovers and we all know that turnovers lead to easy points on the other side it's really hard to control your transition defense and we just wanted to get the best available shot every time down the floor tremendous stuff great way to be able to dive deeper into some of these topics and we're going to but I'm going to circle back with the point five concept a lot of people talk about it as you know in my phrasing it's called zero seconds on the website same concept but what I'm wondering is there a time for the game to slow down and for players to slow down and if so what are some of those situations absolutely we put our offensive identity there so we can always go back in the critical times of the game when things are not going the way we want like we are we wanted our identity to be there so we can remind our guys and get them back to that style of play of course there are times it's not the same thing if you're running your offense after made basket if you're running your office after miss shot and getting rebound on the live ball turnovers after free throws all of those is reasons situations demand different way of executing your office and putting your office in the best best situation to to be effective and for us point five was the way of to make guys to play together to depend on each other to play we call it beautiful basketball you know all of us on coaching staff led by coach Monty we loved Santonio way of playing basketball when they were the peak of their game and we believe that for our team and the talent level all of our guys that was the right way to go about it and that we had to play all together of course there are parts of the game that you need to slow down that you need maybe to run some said maybe to put the ball in the hands of your best player or denim Booker or Ricky Rubio or eight and to post up and to create advantages there but also we wanted to to to our Bayes baseline style of play always be playing inside point finals love it and you know the other thing is the good great concept which is great phrasing and I love that and I love teaching it but so there's sometimes a danger in teaching this good great concept because you ultimately want your players to be confident shooting their shot in their spot so I'm wondering how do you educate and develop this concept of good to great for your players for us it was a big part like coach Monty and and we as a staff really wanted our guys really to be confident and to play together and to put guys in situations where they're really successful now concept good to great also means that we wanted players to understand that if they have a better option than than the first one they gotta see those situations and we would never be like too too strict with guys nobody would go into bench food for taking a shot like that but over the course of the whole year we kept educating guys of the importance of playing it the right way we kept showing the film old moving the ball fight finding extra passes finding open shots and of course all of that is banged up data analytics if we have wide open shot in the corner that that that's gonna be high-quality shot comparing even Devin Booker taking contested shot that might be from the elbow area so we also educated guys of importance where the shots are coming from shot distribution the value of the old shots and also also we wanted you guys to have a feeling of playing together and they identified that was that was a problem kind of in the past for the team and some of the guys on team they de played too much ISO gold and this was our way to establish culture and to establish new things for the for our team that we we believe are gonna move our team in the right direction well and that was reflected in the league the league in assists game goal exactly so for the big part of the year we were averaging 30 about three assists per game and big part of that of course he's having Ricki Ruby on the team who is great point guard and in past first point guard but all the guys from our experience is players want to play inside of system they're touching the ball not necessarily getting shots but they want to touch the football they want to feel that they are part of the offense they want to get a good rhythm for the game and all the players they feel much more confident like if they're constantly touching the ball when the shot actually comes to them they're gonna feel much confident shooting the ball and they always encourage guys do to be ready to shoot the ball and shoot first mentality and I because we had really good and humble guys that accepted that concept and and actually the we made some some really good strides with our team well you absolutely did and you guys were fun to watch and it was great to see that change on the floor speaking to high school coaches who maybe can't change their roster and influence things as much in that way what are some ways to be able to develop that mindset so limiting turnovers what was a part of the execution and when guys have good spacing when guys get him in the right spots when guys are playing good for each other that that's gonna kind of like take care of itself again if you want to be a team that moves the ball a lot that passes the ball a lot of course you're gonna have turnovers you're gonna commit some turnovers and you gotta be you gotta be able to live with some of those turnovers we just that they don't want to have any unforced turnovers they're gonna lead to two easy baskets in transition for the opposing team and we had pretty good response from our team we did a bunch of drills in our during the course of the season it's gonna put us in position to be successful with it we had games inside the practice where we would take away point from a team of the hema if they commit a turnover but at the same time we just wanted guys to play freely to play with a lot of confidence and to play off of each other so I love that you set it that way and I love that the turnover part of it and and the permission to make turnovers within the framework that you define helps players be more comfortable and you brought up Rubio already and to me what when you think of a player like that it's a great model for a turnover right because his turnovers are the ones that are seeking solutions and possibilities out of creativity and maybe that the other players don't see so actually learning from his toner turnovers probably helps players see other possibilities yeah Chris you're absolutely Ricky was Ricky is such a huge part in our rebuilt and establishing our culture and when he plays that way when he plays to find other guys to improve other guys that brings a lot of confidence into his play and other guys are also allowing themselves to to play that way what I mean by that is think that one very important concept is player and needs to be confident to make mistake he needs to be as you said in inside of the framework of what you're doing but they gotta be willing and vulnerable enough to try to do new things to try to improve that's the only way you can improve as a player impute improve you as a coach improve us as a human being you gotta try to do it you you get ahead but you gotta have good intentions behind it and that's why example of the war leader of Ricky Rubio was so huge and empowered some other guys to go the direction and it helped us to be the best team in NBA in moving the ball and number of us is per game let's get back to this whole broad picture of identity the identity never changes but the identity gives you a framework to be able to add or subtract different things can you talk about that identity identity is something that that you always go back to it that's your baseline and it's your finish line we had this year we had a bunch of games that you know under the pressure of the scored under the pressure old you know trying to win games like guys will try to be a little bit heroes and taking them on themselves and try to win the game and try to do things there's gonna help the team but that's a huge point at that point of time to to get back to your baseline and to remind guys okay slow down breathe you know we gotta go back to out the to to the way we play you gotta trust each other you gotta the bull and all times under the pressure players have tendency like we're talking about NBA guys and top players in the world it's it's normal thing for those guys they have confidence they did and they know they're capable of doing things so - - at the same time for those guys not to have a tunnel vision and to be able to share the ball and play inside the rules in place at a team you constantly better go back and remind guys about that offensive identity and the way we want to play what's gonna give us the best chance in the game and that approach really helped us in bunch of games - to win games and you could really see that often timeout guys going back on a floor layout okay we know what we need to do right now like I don't need to do it everything by myself like if you play 0.5 if I move the ball if I find my my open teammate things will take care of itself and you know talk talk a little bit about offensive buckets because I know this is the second part of this hole if we're talking about installing an offense reflective building I must be for you or the sons we're talking about establishing an offensive identity and then figuring out how you're gonna get offense but you talk about that absolutely so one big thing for us is allowing guys to play inside those rules but also to play with without thinking too much we wanted players to to get comfortable with video fans to play inside there are strengths and that's why we divided our playbook in those offensive buckets so first first thing get on offensive buckets is like there was a way we wanted to play out after mist office like if offens would've missed the shot we get the defensive rebound and we're running in open court and what we really wanted to to achieve there in this office is to spread the floor to get our wings wide and opening in an extreme corner in a deep corner we wanted our fire man - rim run if he had a chance and if he and he was in the same level with a ball with a point dad and they could go into early bigger holes or wiping down with we had certain rules for our mess office and what we wanted to achieve and second part of it was like after make offense when opposing team makes a shot would what are we in and we had this offense that I'm gonna talk about in later like much much more in depth is we called it outer and it was creating equal opportunity opportunities it was a reflection of our 0.5 mentality third bucket was plays and rules after free throws what we wanted to run then we had SOPs sideline out of bounds baseline out of bounds after timeout plays we had a place at the running in deep corner what we wanted to run full court if the team was pressuring us 3/4 of the court if you were inbounding the ball inside then we had 241 rules we have a slow two-for-one we had get in ball and then special situations end of the game situations so inside inside each of these these groups so we had certain rules in certain plays and it was a small bucket some guys would much quicker recognize what their win and and they will be able to execute it so each of those became a defining part in terms of your philosophy and what you guys were trying to do but talk about install let's go all the way back to training camp in terms of install where did you start in terms of what we've already established offensive identity where do we now start that's that's really good question and I'm gonna tell one short story and that's gonna help describe like mentality that we can to this year so our preseason we didn't have it here in Phoenix we get it in Flagstaff which is like two hours drive from Phoenix the mountains in our first five days of training camp were supposed to be there so once we came to the last hole coaching staff players support staff our coach Monty told everybody the first thing that they're gonna do when we become to Flagstaff it is you're gonna have a conditioning test and he did not talk about that to us players or anybody nobody know about what he's gonna do and he just said like just trust me when we get there you'll see so it was funny right so for two hours on the bus nobody said the word we came to Flagstaff and you could see the players they were confused they were afraid like but you know everybody imagining that you'll be doing some suicides and running in guys questioning my good shape or whatever it might be so instead of going to the gym or working out we came to two video room and there was only one slide that coach showed on TV and it was conditioning test and he said he made a story about it like you guys you were so quite an embossed like you were thinking about this but actually conditioning test this is gonna be something that they're gonna be facing all year long NBA season brings a lot of challenges for somebody's contract here for somebody it's playing time you're gonna have a self-doubt you're gonna have a stress you're gonna have confidence you at some point you're gonna experience arrogance you're gonna have fatigue media social media all of that stuff so big part of that was trying to prepare players for the challenges that are coming and we gotta try to stay true to who we want to be and to have our identity offensive and defensive identity and all of that led us into preparation for the first day of a training camp and to bring our mental stamina that is gonna follow us all all year so a lot of times later in the year we used that story and mentioning to two players to remind guys about this is actually the moment we talked about those are the obstacles we are going to be facing and we gotta go back to God conditioning because we got condition ourselves to be ready for those challenges so after that it was much easier to install our offense like no doubt is that unique like you've never experienced that type of thing before at the NBA level I never I never experienced that before and I talked to other assistant coaches everybody were surprised and just getting coach Monte keep that in his back pocket not even sharing with us like even as his coaches like we were thinking what's going guy like what's gonna be when we get there and that was his way of getting guys attention on a big picture and what the most important thing is you know well it speaks to one of the most important parts of coaching which is to make the comfortable uncomfortable and then make them comfortable again and that's the part of this process of developing a team in this example taking it over a whole new organization as well that's right that's right Chris you're absolutely right so our training camp we dedicated a lot of times to put our offensive system in and we knew that we have completely new team completely new coaching staff and that we could not skip steps but we wanted to be able to play 505 as soon as possible and to allow guys to show their talents inside the offense as soon as possible so first day in the practice on on offensive and we put just one play in just basic zipper into the rub and we put basic rules in our make offense in outer office that we explained spacing which is wings they gotta come not to the extreme corner but to the break trailer is gonna be a top of the key for men or five men because the two positions are interchangeable he's gonna be on the elbow and the opposite side from the ball and point guard bringing the ball inside and we just showed our guys like one or two options of that data dolphins and we told guys that inside the office is gonna be our B is gonna be this description of our whole offensive identity and we wanted players to come up with their own solutions with their own ideas with their own set of rules and we wanted to start playing as soon as possible so when we were developing that offense and preparing for the season you know we had we had seven eight options on one side of the floor as many on the other side if the ball catches there is available we had five or six options so as you can see like if we would try to install all of those options and teach players it would just take so much time and it would be hard for guys to - to absorb all of that and he's gonna it would be it would slow players down if you slowed their thinking down and instead of doing that we show them option one and two and naturally they came up to the option three four and five and actually what was the best part about it they showed us some options that we we did not had in our mind we did not have on a paper and they come up with solutions you know and I think the that offense that they were able to implement Wars was great great reflection of our identity the way we wanted to play but also installing confidence in our players in loudly allowing them to play their instincts and to play free basketball and to play off of each other of course there were certain rules you know if the offense is gonna over play and deny the pass we have a counter we knew we knew we wanted to go to bend or cut and just to go back to the positioning of the players that's one of the main reasons why in our make offense in our office we did not want wings to go all the way to extreme corner but we wanted those guys to be at the break because at the break a lot of times defense would overplay and try to break the play down and it would allow much more room for some backdoor cuts if the offense is trying to play behind a player and chase the action then it would allow us to have some face cuts and padding was a huge part of what we wanted to do this year but cutting coach just let me stop you there just before we we go on I've got to stop I get asked all the time about a games approach and some of the strengths of the games approach to coaching and you just described it perfectly without the scientific words or anything like that you just described it to a tee and I get asked a lot by coaches what does this all mean what are you talking about and you just nailed it and I just want to go back and remind coaches what you started all this with install one play and let them play from there you can add constraints which are things that shape learning and is in your example you know rules restrictions different things like that that shape learning we don't have to install everything all at once we can mix in letting them play with installation and to me this is this is brilliant I'm so happy you shared this please I wish you know I'm smarter that I could use more of a scientific words but I'm just using comma comma busting base why you joined basketball immersion to learn those work no you don't have to use the words the words aren't that important but the point is is that really smart coaches get this already and a lot of them are doing this isn't like a new thing sometimes I just add vocabulary so Chris just to piggyback on what you said there and it is very important that way the way we install them but they often is the second part of that is we had our combo work we was 3 on 0 very very few times 3 on 0 usually it was three against coaches or three and three so we had approached Hall part-whole and when we were in hold and we are introduced the whole whole concept it was just teaching one or two options then when we would go to to combo work it was the same approach sometimes we used our coaches and coaches they would mix up different coverages so players they had to recognize they had to play against for example it would be PK role and difference is a blitz we knew we had set the rules how big man needs to open that he needs to go in short role that we had to have certain spacing on the floor and that that part of teaching really helped us to have really quick transition into into playing five on five and four players to understand that concept and to to to have recognition all all of those situations so the having approached whole parts whole and something that really really helped us this year to install offerings quickly and to allow offense to grieve to out to allow offense and allow players to bring their own creation to it and their own stamp to it probably brilliant great stuff and we're gonna go a lot of places still but I know one of the areas that we wanted to focus on is offense after makes and this concept of what you call auto and just so you know coaches I'm gonna put a full edit of auto on basketball Merchants YouTube channel so be sure to subscribe if you're not put that up next Tuesday so you can put some words and visuals together to the auto offense that we're talking about now can you give us some of the talking points about auto couple of things there so we wanted our four men or five men whoever was closer to e-mount ball and four and five men they were interchangeable so we wanted to have quick him bound to get a ball to the point out into his hands and for point guard if he had a hit ahead and opportunities to run and school right away baby we will do it but if point God will bring the ball down the floor we wanted players to get to certain points on the floor and four or five they were interchangeable as I said and they were to occupy trailer spot and opposite elbow spot wings would be at the break and point guard will bring the ball down the floor so from that point of view we wanted to be in those spots with 20 seconds in a clock so we wanted really to push the ball to give ourselves a chance to attack early in a clock but if he did not have that opportunity and defense is already set then we would go to two out oh and two different options out of it so I always like to say you have to name it in order to teach it so we did not show all the options to the players right away but once they got that option we tried to give it a name you know so if we would bring the ball down we had has the ball to the trailer up top and they would try to pass the ball to the elbow to our Foreman or five for four or five men who ever was at the elbow and that option was we called it Hill elbow we did not have to call it every single time but if he's so the advantage with our four or five men at the elbow you know coach had always that freedom on the side to to to to tell a point guard to tell Ricky Hill elbow and they would know exactly know what were going into so that part of offense so we could just call out and play completely freely or we could call certain options of their offense there is so advantage of in certain positions and we could go straight to that so what it opened up for us is great body movement great ball movement great spacing and this year they were the fourth best team in NBA in scoring off of the cuts and when you play that way when you little carts even you hear Bulman movement and players always feel they're part of the office that really helped our morale and confidence and the allowed our office to grow as the year was progressing good stuff good stuff and under sundar stand that kind of process of not just installation but implementation as well auto in the basic terms is a template right there's automatics are there rules I know there's possibilities you spoke to that a little bit but can you also call plays out of it yes so for example we could call a plate it's gonna get us scene one five pick it all on the side with spacing on the other side to open the floor we could get into missed election that would be a step up from a god coming from a break and we wouldn't allow that player again to read if he can roll to the rim or he could come off the flare from the top we had options if the ball would come on the same side of the floor we had a play called to go it on the backside on the opposite side of the floor and inside all of those there were certain rules if ball goes one way like first of all we want his spacing we want the body movement and we wanted the freedom we wanted players to make decisions on their own we did not want our guys to make them robotic and to tell them every single time what would I do so even when we we would call a play and we would call certain option out of that office we wanted our guys to use their own head their own instincts and they trusted our guys they're gonna make right decisions all of those decisions are based on certain set of rules which always go back to identity are you playing inside point five are you playing paint too great are you executing right spacing on the floor are if they denied you are we going for a backdoor in peek at all if they go under the screen we want you to screen and play out of that so if you put it that way office would become like so much complex and so many options out of it and if you would try to teach all of those options you will lose so much time and players would become so hard it would be so hard to teach those guys but once you give them freedoms and basic set of rules and they need to use their own judgment on the floor that creates great buy-in players feel they're a part of something that's bigger than themselves and they take a lot of pride of recognizing situations in the floor making right decisions and knowing the dead way they're helping their team that's not gonna necessarily put them in a position for them to score for them to drive the ball but it's going to allow whole offense to breathe and everybody would have equal opportunities at the end of the day the best players will have the most shots in the game you know and ball finds always great players so and that was the case for us Devin Booker he is his efficiency went through roof this year playing inside the system and we did not force-feed that ball goes to him ball just on him his teammates they did they trust him and they would throw the ball to him in situations where they needed to do but also do to allow him to go to work and to be effective and to be aggressive well well and that's a great point I want to come back to a few things mentioned but first one is players know who the best player is right like you don't have to define that at that level they know the best player and they know that the best player has a huge impact on their success too so their goal is to put the best player in a better situation yeah that's that is correct and players know that they want a ball to be in the hands of best players but also best player has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders and that's why those those identity rules that we installed they gave us a platform to keep best players accountable to the surface tile play and if Devin Booker would try to do too much I didn't really remind him a that player was open you kept you on the ball you've got to make a quick decision you're gonna find him and when we would watch film next day then you prepare for the next game he would always acknowledge that he's very coachable player he wants the best for the team and he wants to win and he wants to do the right things so he we had completed buying by Devin and whole team and actually his leadership and playing the right way allowed other guys to be less selfish and also more more oriented by playing this certain style of play that would allow everybody equal opportunities the thing I want to piggyback on that you talked about is this template of structure and what is often misunderstood when I talk about freedom and develop developing players to play free is that freedom and creativity starts with structure it moves from structured to unstructured it doesn't start with unstructured and that's exactly what you described as you're talking about this is that your players get more freedom once they understand structure yes that structure and basic rules and basic principles they allow players to to know what they're supposed to do how they're supposed to play where they need to be on the floor to walk to allow other players and again like when we talk about Phoenix Suns when we talk about NBA players we're talking about best of the best we're talking about best players in the world and the amazing thing about those guys is their ability to learn really quickly to adapt and and to grow and when that happens inside a team and you have that structure and inside that structure when you give them opportunities to make their own decisions it is amazing how much opportunities in common more options they bring to the table some things that you never thought about they may they're gonna bring it on table and they do not get paralyzed with older thinking but they were gonna play with instincts and much faster when you play your instincts when you're playing free basketball your decisions are quick you're sharp you're you're your decisions are I would say much more accurate than when you gotta overthink everything and and think about every little aspect of offense and that's why putting that structure early and understanding how you want to play inside the offense and what are the basic rules players they they pick up those things very quickly and later on they are able to to add their own flavor to the offense their own strength to the offense and it allows you really to grow as a team super insights already and we're gonna dig a little deeper here too with how you teach can you talk a little bit about how you teach using the three layers that you talked about so when we put our offense in place and we put five oh no those guys in the right spots and allowed them to play you really encouraged them to to play inside though those rules for example every time and player who the drivable we would ask him for debt to use the dribble to be aggressive to be for forceful and to be to touch the paint when once we are touching the paint a lot of times we would stop at that point and just like arming the right spots are you allowing their drive to develop are in the right spot if defense commits to get an open shot and from dead-dead stage like when we go into playing 505 like we want we will stop our office we will stop it and we will have understanding with players that we need to address things so we can get better and we would not just go every single time through the play allow everything to finish and then address things like we have agreement with players at the start of the year that we're gonna stop and we're gonna coach and we're gonna ask their for their input I think that's very very important part of teaching process is asking questions stopping the practice what do we have over here what happened what do you see and players a lot of times like if they saw it or that just did one thing when you ask them those questions when you guide them they're gonna give you an answers and they will understand what they need to do and they will understand how much they depend on each other player that needs to relocate to do to the extreme corner is so crucial to put the defense lawyers that can allow the drive to happen if the defense day is too high now it's on that player that's that's driving the ball to recognize that he has to undergo that there is no room to finish at the rim if he needs to make extra pass by that player he needs to be in the right spot a lot of times like when you stop the practice when you ask those questions it is amazing how many times player action will give you correct answer and not just that that we want them to give us correct answer we want to learn from them like what are more options that you see what else can be do over here if the defense is doing this I'll give you I'll give you example that later on in a training camp you're running horns type of action that would put Ricky Rubio at point guard but if instead of having four men to set the screen we had Baron Booker seven screens so first we can all was Ricky Rubio Devin Booker and he had a five man high so Hornsby the small in it so it's amazing when we asked Ricky when we asked book what are other options that you have over here and they showed us like several options not spacing wise what they like to do what are their own preferences how they can play for each other and both of those guys they complemented each other and allow the other player to play and to be aggressive but also created some more options for us offensively that we did not have in our playbook that we did not have planned and once you hear your players once you get their input the learning process is much more faster like you cannot just teach and expect players students just to listen you got to engage them in conversation you got to allow those guys to have their own input and once you have that you get their intention focused pen is much longer their creativity is there and the trust is there and that's one thing Trust is a huge huge part of our offense and our relationships inside the team that we wanted players to feel that once they come to the practice that's safe environment like we are here to get better your Hill here here to help each other and they're here to show that your overall none of us we have all the answers none of us we have all all the solutions but accepting that certain things we could do better listening to each other and being able to move from it as a whole as a team was a huge huge part of teaching process for us and allow us to do you do you have one cohesive group this year really like that I want to just ask you because again I think this is a mistake coaches make if we think about it in terms of teaching the whole first the one advantage is you don't have to waste time on unnecessary parts that process you go through as a coaching staff after you put it in say this one play and then you play you can evaluate it and then decide what parts you actually need to break down or work on more is that happening yes that's the that's exactly the reason why we wanted to put a hole first and to to see guys play out of it so we could recognize and learn from players and learn from from watching video and learn from talking to the guys what actually works best for our team so later on we could break down that into into parts and later on in season you know when you're going through the rounds and you don't have really long time that you cannot play a lot of through contract contact like we would use those pots and teach those parts and go through it as a preparation for the games as a reminder for the guys that that they can use in games and the next layer that we would add to that was understanding coverages like what defense might be doing in the game with King downs are they going should a gap or lock and chase and what kind of counters what kind of type of shots we can we can be looking for that but again to go back to - to - to the beginning everything starts with a hole everything starts like putting the system in allowing guys to play a five-on-five allowing them to learn but also us to learn what is the best for the team then potentially taking parts of that analyzing it adjusting it and moving it back - to the hole we wanted to spend as much as possible in hole we wanted to spend as much time as possible being focused on whole team and playing five on five and not really spent a lot of time mean I don't know one two three against zero no different situations we did not want to spend a lot of time on that we believe that learning process for for four players is much faster and much better and has better quality and of track of transfer when you when you address it this way and when you teach it you know well we know that basketball transfers to basketball so transfer absolutely happens when you play basketball and the other part here is that a lot of coaches listening might think okay this is great at the NBA level I wanna share this at all levels the sometimes there's a misconception I'm anti drills I'm not anti anything to be honest I'm just anti wasting time and doing fluff that doesn't help your players improve or your team win and that's what a lot of those predetermined progressions are predetermined breakdowns are play the game and then figure out what you need to work on that's the process and I'm so glad that that you helped shape this conversation with so many of these insights well Chris to be honest with you I was not always doing it this way I'm nor was I nor was like well I started coaching when I was 16 years old and I'm 40 years old 20 40 years old of coaching experience and I did it like old school what other coaches bid and what I learned and I try to replicate that and I always felt the same way Laura always felt that how can I become more efficient how I can use the time better how I can improve the learning process and the other thing that that's very important to understand is we're not dealing with the same type of players that were like 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 years ago we gotta go with the generation and this generation today is very visual generation and they're learning patterns are different than it was when I was going in a high school and last several years it really caught my attention and of different way approaching things and doing it as much as possible as a whole and doing it as much as possible in a team environment concept and not wasting time on drills that are not necessarily that's not gonna move the needle and if I could go back and big part of my career was working with youth programs and youth teams I would have different approach and I would I would spend much more time playing it five on five and teaching the game that way and less drilling drill drills long times they're very satisfactory for for coaches and it's much easier to achieve some kind of perfection in the drill but how much of that you're gonna have as a transferring to gain how much of that information players are actually gonna receive and implement in a game that's how the question so if I could go back and I would work with young guys and I think this is actually the message for those high school coaches and the coach is working with younger players don't be afraid to try it and you will be you will be surprised with the reaction of the team you will feel surprised of the retaining information and also you will be surprised how much you as a coach I'm going to enjoy that approach on what coaching the game that's great and I'm glad you touched on it that players enjoy it they'd love to play basketball and I've asked coaches at clinics and I've asked people before but it's like you know Darko you know when you go play pick up are you starting with three-man weave are you doing shell drill know you're playing basketball and that's the fun of it absolutely absolutely let's play more basketball let's move on to video and using video to teach because this is kind of the third layer of this is how do you use video to support your install and refinement of your offense so we use video in different ways and first first is showing video to the whole team and what we try to do is teach show options make corrections and they want to involve players as much as possible - to be part of that and to share what we found out is in debt set up there you know you have whole team there and like whole coaching staff players are not inclined really to open up easily and to talk you know some guys will do but they don't really feel comfortable in those setups so what we did a lot this year is we show the film in individual setup but also in a group set up you know they didn't book her would play together with the under-18 and they're playing around post up get those two guys show them like what they were going through asking questions and it is amazing how those guys they start actually talking to each other and communication is such a huge part of teaching communication is such a huge part of of improving your team and I see that players nowadays they don't they're not really comfortable to talk to each other but once you put them in that setup that they have video that they need to analyze it they need to talk to each other that you ask questions it is amazing how much those guys open up and share good ideas and help that and help their improvement and a lot of times like when we show video in that individual or group or team set up we're gonna ask guys like what do you see over here like why did we make mistake we're here and they would tell us the problem was facing I hold the ball too much I didn't pass the ball to open open man whatever it might be but also they're gonna ask them like what are other options that you had over here and players would would really recognize those situations I could go all the way to the rim I see it right now and if you remember rewind back and one dribble back it's completely diff picture and they can they can see those images and those images visually stick with those guys they'll have opportunity to transfer that in in a game setup much faster so to answer your question watching video and giving a video feedback to players and also engaging guys in that that process is something that really helps players to to improve and it's gonna really help your your office to to get better coach order maybe some things that coaches haven't thought about when it comes to video this traditional model of everyone in a team room for a long video session you know that by and large is gone so give us an idea of some of the effective practical strategies for using video so we never stayed longer watching film any kind of film we never stayed longer than 10 to 12 minutes you know a lot of times that's a quick five minute film like you know we always try to keep it like after games to show five offensive and defensive clips to focus really on the most important things and you cannot coach every single aspect of the game every single mistake that happen in game you gotta have approach that's gonna is gonna open up solutions for the players and not to criticize players and to take their confidence and like you know a lot of times it's easy to watch that film and to be emotional about it in a sense like oh we just lost last night game and everything is bad and you know and then you show much more film that then you would show when you when you win so for us it was always trying to stay consistent with a message trying to not to be emotional about it and try to focus on the most important things like we would never like if we would see patterns there repeating and that we needed to address we would dress those things it's Ricky Rubio Komets five turnovers in one game we would not show video of that next morning again we would not kill Ricky Rubio because of five turnovers for multiple reasons first of all he knows he is aware that second of all he did not have one turnover in previous five games so it's not something that's pattern that's repeating so it just happened one night like you cannot be emotional about it and having that big picture mentality understanding where you need to lead your team in what direction to lead your team that's how you use your video it's not just to prove your point it's to allow your team to grow it's to allow your team to get better that's such an important thing it's it's not just to prove your point is to help your players improve and you know all the best coaches are doing that in that way and talking about that so that's a really cool connection there so going back a little bit let's talk about different coverages if we're to look at one segment of auto after you've installed it they played with it and then you've decided that you need to work on a specific part of it let's say against switching what is that process can you talk talk us through that process a little bit of how you actually do it thank you for asking that question needs it is very important to to to do that so and I'll give you a couple of examples so we be around at offense and we put it in and offense is functioning but other teams are scouting the tendencies of the players they know tendencies of the offense they will throw different things at you and what we did a lot is when we were preparing for certain teams and we know for example we played Houston Rockets and Houston Rockets is switching one through five so we knew that going into that game we needed to slip in PK roles we need we knew that we needed to create confusion for them we knew that we needed to throw the ball in the post up to the other eight and against smaller God's got in him and what we did in a practice is we had coaches we put five coaches video guys on the floor and they would play defense that way and if we could execute it but also we played five or five in the practice with those same same defensive rules but making adjustments in our offense that we need to slip much more than because it we need to roll to the rim that's the way that we that we need to attend the paint and then we got a dominate a glass and so we did not go away from our office we did not go away from our structure we just pointed out one detail and adjustment in in our offense in slipping PK rolls and warming more to the rim instead of sometimes popping and it really functioned great in the game against Houston and the beat Houston EMI in Phoenix can be played against those guys again we will play against T that we know that Denver Nuggets they're gonna blitz trap everything control didn't book her we were the same thing we would have coaches just to to play defense and final five and we'll just tell them okay we got a blitz every time now with that being said we did not want guys to understand that as a drill and to turn off okay they're gonna blitz me every single time this is what we gotta do so we would tell coaches or we would tell defensive team to mix in defensive coverages and to do different things so guys always have to stay sharp they always gotta understand what's going on and those are at the moment that we would really stop the practice and teach it like it defense with blitz and we want our big man to go in a short role getting out quickly it would be available to catch the ball we wanted to bring quarter guys up high so they can receive the ball all of those things would come out out of our outer offense in the moment with the Carroll would happen and now the guys they needed to judge they could not just go and play whatever they want they needed to adjust the new situation solving the problem and getting into the right spots and from there just playing to get playing point five are the identity identity and playing to the strengths of the team and this way of adapting your office and preparing your office for for the next opponent for the next game is something that that guys really enjoyed they we never went away from our style of play we never went away from our offense we did not go to running some other sets they just ready they were just ready for the counters and guys really enjoyed all enjoyed this way of teaching them so instead of just going 500 and say this is gonna what they're gonna do we're gonna be in those positions throughput defense right away and we would make guys make mistakes and then we would correct them and again people go back to play final five allowed him to execute it again so it was a lot of fun players they pick up on those things really quickly and allowed us to have really quick transfer a to into the games that we were facing certain type of coverages and offenses well I can imagine and that got back to transfer and the the importance of transferring stuff from practice to the game and you know the other thing is this is that was an outstanding example of a constraint let approach when you create a condition to shape your players learning in that example working versus a certain coverage and that's that's everything that's how you create drills to be able to help your players improve and to help their help your team win and then as they get more comfortable you can mix in multiple possibilities so they have to learn to identify ultimately what what happened at what can happen right that's right and I don't think I would say we debt is players that are really competitive and they want to win and they want to do well and they want to make sure you know so whilst you really honor debt and give them freedom and give them and create a Buy in the learning process is so much faster and guys do great job coach we've done all this and now what's the process of feedback what's the feedback loop within your organization the way to get a feedback from players is first of all they have to have a trust in a coaching staff and a team so they can be asked like you want guys to be honest and once you implement your system as you're playing games you gotta ask players how do you feel about this is this comfortable for you to show them film like sometimes there are areas that you want to address and get better at sometimes you need to go away from certain options on your offense sometimes you've gotta change it like sometimes you just see that that it's not working but engaging players getting a feedback from them talking to those guys is so important and I think on MBA level the huge part is played by assistant coaches and their relationships with players because assistant coaches are the ones who are dealing with players daily not workouts and watching individual video and group video and all of that so getting the good feel for what they think how they feel inside the offense what are the areas that we we could do better and improve is the way to go about it and inside of that there there has to be a really good connection between head coach and assistant coaches and the trust there so you can be free to share those thoughts with your head coach and for him to understand in what way he needs to move the team in what direction he needs to move the team and that's one thing that our team did the exceptionally good job with coach Monty is that we had really open relationships and players trusted him coaches trusted him and there was always open communication his doors are always open and he always wants you to talk game and to to get a feedback and to learn from both players and coaches Wow I can't thank you enough for your openness and sharing this valuable information and obviously to both Monty Williams and the Phoenix Suns organization as well for supporting you doing this I don't think there could be anything better than you sharing the process and thank you so much for spending time with us thank you Chris and it was a pleasure to be part of your podcast and keep up the good work thanks but