Putting a team together is not an easy thing. When you think about all of the peripheral issues that are dealt with during a basketball season, it is sometimes amazing that teenage boys will come together like we did last winter and win some games.Players: The coach tries to get the players to buy into the "team" concept. That sometimes is hard because we are inherently selfish, and it is something we try to preach all the time, that the individual actually gets more attention by giving up some of their skills, or more importantly, their wants.
They are listening to their coaches, their parents, their relatives, their girlfriends, their friends at school. They worry about their name in the paper, if a teammates name is in the paper, if somebody on the team doesn't like them for someone reason (i.e. girls). Players have to buy into what the team needs all the while hearing things constantly that may go against that.
Coaches: The coach has to deal with different personalities. Some selfish, some not, some indifferent...and that is just the parents. The players can be emotional before they ever step on a court and with competition those emotions get ratcheted up a notch or two.
When you have supportive parents, which I feel that we have, and the players buy into the team concept it makes the coaching job so much easier.
What is amazing is that in some situations what is going on elsewhere through conversations is not making your job easier as a coach and yet players still listen to the coach and desire for the team to be successful.
Rarely, are you going to see 5 individuals be successful. It's too bad that not everyone on the perphery can appreciate the lack of bad shots, the ability to pass the ball, the ability to lead in other ways than scoring. 5 individuals cannot win, but acting together they are tough to beat.
I wish that ESPN would play highlights of defense, of great and good passes, and players diving on the ball...but I guess it is the nature of the beast. These influences, however, are yet one last thing that affects basketball players and their ability to perform as a "team".
If you can wade through the peripheral, the team buys in, the team performs, and the team wins/loses together; then individuals will get a lot of attention.
