The Basketball Podcast: EP334 with Chris Oliver on 10 Years of Sharing the Game

Chris Oliver is the founder of Basketball Immersion, a leading resource for basketball coaches and players worldwide. Since 2014, Chris has been dedicated to sharing his passion for the game through innovative coaching methods, immersive videos, and insightful podcasts.

With a decade of experience in educating coaches, Chris Oliver has established himself as a trusted authority in youth basketball development. As a consultant for the NBA’s youth basketball development programs, Chris Oliver works to shape the future of the game. He is also involved with the renowned Sierra Canyon basketball program, further solidifying his commitment to nurturing young talent.

Through Basketball Immersion, Chris Oliver provides coaches with the tools and knowledge to enhance their teams’ performance. His engaging content, including the popular Basketball Immersion podcast and in-depth video analysis, has resonated with coaches from grassroots to elite levels.

Chris’s mission is to empower coaches, players, and basketball communities globally, fostering a deeper understanding and love for the game. Join the Basketball Immersion community to tap into Chris’s expertise and transform your coaching and playing experience.

Listen Here:

Chris Oliver Quotes:

“Why do we have to wait until the end of the practice to eat dessert? Why can’t we play basketball at the beginning of practice? For me, it immediately connects coaches, connects the principles of play that I’m trying to coach, and it allows players to be able to explore and to connect immediately with old information and new information and give them an opportunity to be able to play the game.”

“For literally every age group, from five-year-olds up to college and pro players, and I would say fun for all of them, is learning and improving. So, my no-nonsense approach when it comes to this podcast, when it comes to coaching, is to get right to the point of trying to help someone improve, to try and help someone learn and focusing on that process, and to skip some of the fluff and get right to the point and add value.”

“Don’t do things just because every other coach is doing it. Do things because it makes sense, it’s logical, it’s based on evidence and evidence-based and experiential ideas, and it gives you what you feel is a competitive edge.”

“I did this with six-year-olds just this past week . . I basically go up to them and very directly tell them, ‘You’re off task, get back on task.’ . . If you’re on task, you’re going to get better at basketball, and you’re going to have more fun playing basketball. So, I explain that part about, ‘Why are you working on your game?’ You’re working on your game, so you get better at basketball, so you have more fun playing basketball. The more skilled players, the better your technique, the more fun because the more solutions you’re going to have.”

“I explain to them what coaching is because I think we assume they know what coaching is. I’m not talking about some technical definition of what coaching is. I’m talking about the reality that coaching is me telling a player that they can do something better, and that’s it.”

“I don’t need to be just your self-esteem coach. And I tell them straight up, I am not just your self-esteem coach. Sure, I’ll tell you when I think you’re doing something better than you used to do it, I’ll normalize that. I’ll notice that. But at the end of the day, I feel it’s my job to create optimal struggle for you so that you grow as a player. Part of that struggle is that I have to be able to explain to you, and it has to be a safe space for me and for you to receive it, that I can tell you that you can do something better.”

I’m a basketball coach, and sure, I focus on tactical development, tactical development of players, but I would say most of what I do is probably psychological in the sense that I’m trying to develop this bravery for players and be kind of this confidence coach that maybe frees them, whether it’s defundamentalizing them because they become too fundamental in terms of too rigid in terms of robotic, because they do exactly what a coach has told them. And I try and get them out of that space and to be more creative, trying to get them to be the best version of themselves.”

“We don’t actually grow the player, we create the environment for the player to grow. That comes back to my three Es of coaching: First and foremost, I’m trying to create an Environment. The second thing is I’m trying to create an environment where they get to Explore. And then third, I’m going to use coaching interventions and Explicit instruction to be able to help them see possibilities or to be able to grow beyond current realities.”

“Here’s one thing that I’ve gone to asking players when I see they’re too emotional. I feel my power as a coach is not in big conversations, it’s in mini conversations. So, this mini conversation for me is going to a player and asking, ‘Can you be resilient right now?’ And turning their emotional outburst into a challenge.”

“Can you be resilient right now? Can you focus on the present now? Things happen. Obviously, the difference is that some [players] stay in the drama and some are resilient and quicker getting back to the present. And then usually, I’ll just walk away. I’m not there to have a conversation. I’m just there to give them a choice. I understand what happened. I understand that you made a mistake. I understand you’re frustrated. Whatever it is, I understand that somebody did something that caused you to have this outburst. Can you be resilient right now and then just walk away? We’re not there to negotiate. We’re not there to do anything. We’re just there to be able to highlight possibilities for them. And my possibility is, ‘Let’s be resilient right now.’ And I’ve found that’s been really effective for players.”

“Players learn how to make good decisions by making decisions, not by following directions. So, as much as possible and as early as possible, put them in decision making situations. I just got back from a camp where I worked with five, six, seven-year-olds in one three-hour session. And literally, from the beginning to the end, they were always making decisions. There was no point where they were not trying to score or trying to stop someone from scoring.”

“I’ve said this a number of times. If running fixed problems, we’d have no problems. We still have problems. So I don’t think running is always the best solution to try and fix the problem. Nor do I feel like physical consequences are. I’m not anti using them as reminders as a quick hit. I just think they take away from learning time and practice time, and you get better at basketball by playing basketball. So, every time I have them running some type of lines or some type of thing for punishment, then they’re not getting better at basketball.”

“Repeating and learning are very different things. Sure, I can get them to follow my instructions and just do what I say, but that’s not really the goal. The goal is that they’re problem solvers and they can solve problems on their own. So, if I have to shout the same thing to them every week, they haven’t learned it. So maybe consider a different approach.”

“Once I’ve explored, then I can step in with more explicit instruction. Environment exploration, then explicit instruction. The last part is explicit instruction. I’m not starting with explicit instruction beyond outlining what the drill is, what the constraint is, what the small-sided game is.”

“Players, especially below 17-years old, non elite players . .  don’t need micro skills as much as we think they need micro skills. They really don’t need micro skills. They need macro skills. They need to develop their understanding. What happens when you’re dead? What does a player off the ball do? What does the player on the ball do? What do you do on defense? What do you do on offense? These are big picture things.”

“I’m not saying don’t give them the information. You can give them the information later, but don’t start with the information, because as soon as you give them the information, you take away their freedom, you take away their creativity, and I think you take away their problem solving, which leads to confidence.”

“Some people need more help than others . . we tend to treat some of these players like, ‘Oh, they’re not good.’  Well, they’re not good because they need something different. They need more help than others. It doesn’t mean they can’t be good. It just means that they’re not good yet because they need something different than what they’ve been given.”

“A coaching crime is wasting time . . Please just look at your practices and see how much time in an hour and a half, two hours that players are spent not learning or engaged in physical practice . . If I spend three minutes or 10 minutes on three-man weave, for example, I’m taking away from basketball time that actually helps them play better basketball.”

 “Coaching AAU, we don’t have a scouting report . . basically, I’m only going to focus on one or two players. One to two players. We can’t let them do what they do best and we can’t let them do what they do best . .  So, in the first few minutes of game, I’m going to really try and figure out what two players we have to limit. What do we have to take away from them? How are we going to take it away from them?”

“I just want . . your players, and particularly for you to have a great experience coaching and being able to help young people grow in any capacity in coaching them. And that’s really all the goal is.”

Chris Oliver Breakdown:

Chris Oliver
Víctor Lapeña
Charles Klask
John Beilein
Stanley McChrystal
Dave Love
Matt Robertson
Tyrese Haliburton
Josh Merkel
Chad Murray
Issac Sullivan
Chris Steed
Doshia Woods
Sam Jones
Matt Cline
Phil Pressey
T.J. Saint
Cody Toppert
Zak Boisvert
Zach Guthrie
Russ Rose