The Basketball Podcast: EP438 with Justin Wetzel on the CEO of Player Development

Justin Wetzel Quotes:

“The first step is understanding why this individual player is in your program. What are their strengths? Doubling down on their strengths and using the word ‘expectation.’  So, I need to know what the expectation is for the organization for this particular player we brought in. What are the expectations for the head coach? What is the head coach expecting of this player?  When I meet with the player, that information is going to lead the meeting, but the player is going to be in charge of that meeting.”

“Part of being the coach is I have to help serve him in what’s best for his expectations within the organization. You want to be on the floor, this is what they’re looking for you to do. So, I challenge the athlete with 2 to 3 specific goals they have to have, and they have to be measurable.”

“We got his goal established: shooting 40% from 3. And that goal is performance-based. So, now we have to attach a behavior that’s going to match that performance, and I refer to those as standards. What are the standards that are going to support your goal? . . And for this specific athlete, it was simple. 70% of your shots have to be catch and shoot. How do we do that? Well, we’ve got to run to the corner, we’ve got to play in space, we’ve got to have an elite level of understanding of our concepts, our plays. That’s going to lead to more catch and shoot opportunities.”

“Step 1 is gathering the data within the organization on the expectation. Step 2, is establishing 2-3 goals with your athlete. Step 3 is establishing a standard that matches that goal. And the 4th step in all that is applying a consequence . . Meaning when you don’t live up to your standard, how do you want me to coach that? What’s the consequence you want to create for yourself? I’m not creating it.”

“You have to listen to your player and you have to allow feedback for an adjustment within the development. They’re going to see more than you do as a coach on the floor. Maybe it’s an example of, ‘I’m having a hard time making this read in the pick and roll. This is the coverage I’m seeing.’  So, can we tweak this within the plan?”

“It’s a fine line between ambition and not feeling like you’re enough. Oftentimes, guys are going to be ambitious and they’re going to want to get so much better at the things that they deem weaknesses, it’s going to feel like they don’t have enough in their game. But the reality is you’re here for a reason. Let’s focus on and let’s double down on those strengths.”

“We all want to control our own destiny. We all want to feel like we’re driving our own bus, and this is really what does that. What it does is it really helps avert conflict as well . . If you’re establishing your goal and your behavior and it’s player-led, when you don’t live up to your standard or behavior, what’s your consequence? How do you want me to coach that? It’s hard to really fight back against that as a player and show frustration if you’re the one that that built this.”

“Confidence is proven performance. So, if you can prove that performance over time, that’s going to naturally give you confidence.”

“A goal is a performance-based. When you fail at your goal, it’s just an opportunity to try again. A standard is behavior-based. When you fail at your standard, you failed at your behavior. So that’s different, right? Now, there’s gotta be a consequence for your behavior. If a player didn’t hit his set goal for this game, I rarely talk about that. I talk about the behavior, and I hit that in film the next day. The reason why you didn’t shoot a high percentage last night is you hardly got to the corner. That’s the behavior. The performance is the shot. The behavior is getting to the corner, finding space to get you a good catch-and-shoot opportunity.”

“Sometimes you just need to ask your athletes, ‘What do you need from me?’  It’s our job to have those answers. It is. That’s our job as a coach and a leader. But, sometimes it’s okay to ask, ‘What do you need from me?’”

Justin Wetzel Breakdown:

Justin Wetzel Selected Links from the Podcast: