The Basketball Podcast: EP249 with Ben Taylor on Thinking Basketball

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Ben Taylor Thinking Basketball Quotes:

“When you coach, you build up expertise in coaching; . . when you’re a video coordinator, when you’re a scout, your eye is trained to look at different things. So, each sort of role brings different expertise to the table . . When we come together as a team . . how can we maximize each person’s expertise?”

“I studied cognitive science, which is all about how we learn and how we communicate and how we process information.”

“This is something that I’ve talked to NBA organizations about, how do we communicate from our data analytics department through our coaching staff down to the players, pieces of data that are actionable that they can use in a game? What you don’t want to do is give them something super complex, what you don’t want to do is add unnecessary vocabulary.”

“One of the areas I talked about is cognitive athleticism. Your decision making centers are a huge part of athleticism and what’s going on on the court. But your nervous system is also this thing that’s happening under time pressure.”

“We care about the five pieces on the court working together to try to score as efficiently as possible or try to stop the opponent as efficiently as possible.”

“Results oriented thinking versus process oriented thinking; it doesn’t apply to everything, but basketball, much like poker, is something where you’re going to do the right thing a handful of times, not just once, . . and sometimes you might do it a handful of times consecutively and the results go against you.”

“As long as you’re learning from mistakes and understanding the process as you go forward, I think that’s how you go from game to game and say we’re getting better.”

“The last part of the cognitive science background is how we perceive and talk about the events after they happen.”

“The key to me about the spacing boom is taking the post up as a valuable shot, which clogs up one of the high value areas on the court, and moving guys out of that space . . and saying, ‘What happens if we leave that space open, and we can cut into that space from four different directions?’”

“When you stand around on offense, you make these defensive principles so much easier to execute. When you start moving, cutting, screening, it becomes a nightmare.”

“You can strip out the skill sets and you can say, he’s a great ball handler, he’s a great shooter, he’s really strong, he’s got a great vertical leap, and those things all matter. But when you start breaking down the film you’re like, ‘This guy is just a much better decision maker than this other player.”

Ben Taylor Thinking Basketball Breakdown:

1:00 – Difficult Concepts
5:00 – Cognitive Scientist
8:00 – Applied Science
11:00 – Not Connecting Perception
13:30 – Data Gathering
15:00 – Evaluating Their Defense
17:00 – Old vs New School Thinking
20:00 – Advocating Coaches
22:00 – Lob Pass
24:30 – Passing
28:30 – Yoga
31:17 – 32:00 – Membership Sales Ads
32:00 – Split Cut
34:00 – The Right Structure
38:00 – Coaching Perspective
42:00 – Concept of pre Switching
46:00 – Adaptability
50:00 – Overload Concept
55:00 – NBA Skill Sets
59:00 – Goal of Offense
1:02:00 – Empowering Players

Ben Taylor Thinking Basketball Links from the Podcast:

Ben Taylor

Dirk Nowitzki

Jason Kidd

Rick Carlisle

Andrew Bogut

Tony Allen

Darius Garland

Jarrett Allen

Jayson Tatum

Nikola Jokic

Dylan Brooks

Steve Nash

Mike D’Antoni

Kevin Huerter

Luka Doncic

Mike Prada

Spaced Out: How the NBA’s Three-Point Revolution Changed Everything You Thought You Knew About Basketball

Kobe Bryant

Carmelo Anthony

Jeff Green

Aaron Gordon

Robert Williams III

Steph Curry

Devin Booker

Steve Kerr

Lute Olson

Zion Williamson

Brook Lopez

Ja Morant