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The Basketball Podcast: EP381 with Chris Holm on Shifting Team Culture
In this week’s coaching conversation, Ibaraki Robots head coach Chris Holm joins the Basketball Podcast to share insights on shifting team culture.
Chris Holm is a professional basketball coach with a diverse coaching background spanning collegiate and international levels. He is currently the head coach of the Ibaraki Robots in Japan’s B.League, a position he assumed in June 2024 after serving as the team’s assistant coach for two seasons. His leadership reflects years of tactical growth and adaptability, building on prior success across both coaching and player development roles.
Before joining Ibaraki, Holm spent nearly four seasons with the Kyoto Hannaryz from 2020 to 2024 as an assistant coach, helping guide the team through competitive B.League campaigns. He previously served as an assistant coach at The George Washington University from 2015 to 2019, contributing to the team’s development in the Atlantic 10 Conference. Between coaching stints, Holm also worked in the private sector as a Territory Account Executive with Toast, Inc., further broadening his leadership experience.
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Chris Holm Quotes:
“The buy-in with them was probably the thing I was most concerned with . . I really just showed the guys two things. I showed them where we stood; we were basically last in every analytic defensively. It’s very simple, We can’t win that way. The other thing was to show a pattern within the playoff teams. Teams that make the playoffs were always in the top half of the league in several of the major indicators: point per possession, defensive rating, opponent’s points per game, 2 point percentage, 3 point percentage. If we can start working our way towards that, that is a huge starting point for us.”
“I think the biggest thing that we did was to re-emphasize every single day, individually, where they’re getting better. We’re able to show them film of, ‘Here’s what you’re doing before. Now, look how you’re incrementally getting better. You weren’t doing this before, you’re doing this now.’”
“We’re showing them film, then we’re getting into practice. They’re knowing what they need to do to get better. And then, you could see some of those guys at the end of the bench trying to get better at the things we need to get better at. If the end of the bench is getting better, we can kind of light a fire to force the starters to have to work harder. If they’re comfortable all the time, it’s really hard for me to force you to get better because you’re not going to feel that heat in practice.”
“One of the biggest things that had to happen was I had to get everybody kind of supporting the point guards who were taking over. We were losing at the time because our identity changed once the injury happened [to the starting point guard] . . So, we can either complain or everybody can try to do a little bit more to help support these guys to get them better.”
“Film doesn’t lie. In so many instances, when we pass up a shot, it results in either a bad shot or turnover. And that’s the reason we just pump it into their heads, ‘You have to take the open shot.’ . . Our job as coaches, your job as players is to create great team shots. We’re going to have to live with the fact that some days the shots aren’t going to go in, but we . . can control our focus on trying to create the open ones.”
“Let your man get settled at the nail and then everybody space and get it back to him. The big thing is just being able to play slow. A lot of bigs want to get it and rip and go, they see a meal in front of them. The problem with a small guy is they’re really good at taking charges. So, you’ve got to play at a slower speed, set your guy up, get an angle, get downhill and you’ll score all day long. But you’ve got to have patience . . you can’t just be a bull in the china shop.”
Chris Holm Breakdown:
Chris Holm Selected Links from the Podcast:
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