The Basketball Podcast: EP333 with Dustin Kerns on a Culture of Appreciation

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Dustin Kerns Quotes:

“We also play two nights of pickup, and we call it ‘draft time.’ We try to help our guys understand through different speakers or through experiences that if you’re going to get drafted to the NBA or at the highest level or whatever like that, they are going to call and ask a lot of people about you . . what if they asked for a copy of pickup? Would they still draft you? And so, we really try to make it different. This isn’t just pickup . . If an NBA team watches tonight, will they still draft you with your effort, with your consistency, with how you make the right play, with your habits?”

“We typically play twice a week. One will be five on five, up and down, playing out of different concepts. We design the teams. There’s a shot clock going. There’s. And then we play to a different play out of a different concept. We play two different scores from time to time. And then the only way you can win a game is if you make a free throw.”

“I want our guys excited to be here. I want our guys excited to be here in the summer. And I think that if we’re here from May all the way to August, there comes a time in August where they’re ready to go home. So, bringing our guys late June, early July for those five weeks or so, I think that’s what’s been best for us . . but I remind them. ‘You’ve got time to go on family vacations. You’ve got time to go hang out with your friends.’ And guess what? I think that’s good.”

“We are going to officiate practice. Now, we all take turns. It’s not just one or two coaches, but at the end of the day, we don’t allow bad habits. And so, we use officiating practice as teachable moments. Where it’s a reach, I’m going to call a foul because that’s a bad habit that we’re trying to correct. We have officials come in at least once or twice a year and officiate our practice.”

“We want to be a great defensive team. It [not fouling] is part of our defensive identity. Part of our defensive pillars . . is our opponents score less from the free throw line.”

“You get to see emotions, you get to see reactions that you try to eliminate in the game. We’re not trying to have negative reactions to calls during the game, even though we’re all human, right? We get a chance in practice to practice moving on . . There are times we’re going to make bad calls in practice. But you get a chance to teach your players to move on to the next play because bad calls are part of the game. And so, at the end of the day, we’re going to do all these things in practice to prepare us for the game.”

“We ask our players to do two things. Play as hard as you can. Play so hard your mistakes get covered up. You can play so hard that it’s hard to notice your mistakes. And so, I ask them to just go hard. And then I asked them to play unselfishly. Now, that’s on both sides, right? People think being unselfish means you’re sharing the basketball . . but it’s going to be really hard to play you if you’re selfish defensively, if you’re not playing hard, not being able to rotate and cover for your teammate.”

“We break it down to the pillars. What are the four or five things as a program that are non-negotiables that we talk about and we emphasize daily. For us, it’s pressure the ball. What does that mean? That just means the ball is not passed comfortably, there are no direct passes. We want to play without fouling. Another one for us is we want to affect shots. Why don’t we say contest shots? Quite frankly, I think at the level that we’re playing, contesting a shot is not good enough . . The fourth thing is gang rebounding. Everybody’s got to rebound . . And then the last non-negotiable is effort.”

Dustin Kerns Breakdown:

Dustin Kerns
Larry Shyatt
Pat Riley
Bill Belichick