The Basketball Podcast: EP440 with Ryan Marchand on Dynamic, Adaptable Coaching

 Ryan Marchand Quotes:

“With new GM, a lot of new people, a lot of people being fired or let go . . I didn’t really feel that being an assistant coach was going to help make me a better head coach. There are always things you can learn anywhere you go, but I felt that the challenge peaked out for me.”

Being able to go overseas, be in a few different leagues, get that [head coaching] experience. I didn’t know it’d be in countries where I don’t speak the language . . But I think if you want head coaching experience, being able to get that, being able to communicate, control what you’re doing . . I think it’s really important if that’s your goal of being a head coach somewhere.”

“If everybody’s speaking English and you explain things without an interpreter, you can say everything you want.  But can the interpreter remember everything I’m going to say? Being able to be short with what you’re saying, being able to be direct, it’s really important. It makes you a better communicator. It definitely makes you a better coach and just makes you see things from a different perspective.”

“I need to adapt more to the players rather than, ‘Hey, this is how it works’ but, for the players, where they’re at in their career this doesn’t really fit . . especially the GM sees the roster one way and the head coach sees it another way. How does that dynamic work? . . From the front office [perspective], this player is loved in this country. He’s a little bit older. We know he’s going to sell tickets. People love him. But he can’t do these things. Okay, well, [as a coach] you’ve got to find a way to make it work.”

“At the end of the day, basketball is something you have to solve. And so I think, you know, the way it’s solved from a lot of coaches, and it’s not necessarily wrong, is with drills. We need to learn these techniques . . But I feel that the more that you drill a team, and you see this especially in Asia, they love to do drills over and over and over and over again. I think the more that you drill a team, the less teams are able to adapt, the less they’re able to really think on their own. And I think that’s where you see Europe’s great with some of the flow stuff.”

“We’re playing 12 deep in Japan. The big thing that we talked about last year that will continue is our superpower as a team was our conditioning. We really wanted to wear on teams. Especially in Asia, where you have limited imports. Can we wear those guys out? They’re going to have to play no matter what. We really want to test other teams’ depth. And so,  besides all the basketball stuff, our conditioning is something critical that we work at, full-court man-to-man pressure.”

“We talk about the quality of shot, we want to get the ball inside the 3-point line in the first 4 seconds. And if we can do that, we can give the team an extra point. If they do that, it’s helping us with the pace of the game. If it’s taking the ball out of the basket before the ball bounces, little things like that, we’ll give you an extra point.”

“I have to remember that I’m coaching, I’m not playing. These are the guys that are playing. They’re the ones that are feeling the game. Try to open up that communication as much as possible.”

“I think a misconception with some of these really good players, how do you teach them to play the game? We’re not teaching these guys to play the game. They’re the experts at that. But we are teaching them how to play within the system, how to handle the teammates, what they can control, and how I can help out in those scenarios.”

“I think it’s really important that when you’re coaching to really understand yourself. to be yourself. We all learn. We all take from different people, from different coaches, from different mentors, from the books we read, the movies we see, our life experiences . . It’s okay to be a little bit goofy. It’s okay to be a little bit intense. So, whatever you think you are, be that. I think that’s first and foremost. You can think about the job title too much, especially if you’re new to it. But be yourself. Be yourself first.”

“Especially with a new team this last year . . just building the relationships with the guys, but it was It was also holding them to a standard on the court. So, whenever I saw something, I might use my timeouts in preseason differently than I do during the season. When I see something I don’t like, timeout immediately. Remind these guys what it is. Be a little firmer with this.”

“It’s hard to break certain habits. And if your team can’t break some of these habits, it’s the playoffs where you don’t want to learn that lesson. So, if we can learn in the preseason, if we can learn through the season and break some of these habits that might hold us back later on, I think those are a couple examples that I try to hold these guys to.”

“Our best skill is going to be our conditioning. So, we do need to be in shape. It’s a lot of playing. It’s not just get on the line and run. We want to play. We want to play with short shot clocks.”

“Almost all the coaches were new in Japan. Our 3 foreigners had never played in Japan, and we had a lot of local players who didn’t get much playing time before. And so, you had an organization of people who were out to prove something to somebody. And it made for a really fun atmosphere.”

“That’s part of the speech that I give every single team before the beginning of the season . . One example is having an open mind. I like to be creative, I like to try new things. Some things we’re going to put in, they’ll work and we’ll use. Sometimes they won’t. But I think that’s really important to me in my process. Sometimes they’re good with it, sometimes they don’t like it. That’s okay.”

“One thing that I like to do throughout the season is have communication-type drills and drills where the coaches aren’t involved. Only the players talking. It’s really important that our teams meet, that they huddle, that they communicate . . There needs to be an ownership. Guys need to be able to hold themselves accountable. They need to be able to talk to their teammates, especially in critical games. When the team’s on the other end of the floor, a lot of times those guys can’t hear what I’m saying. They only have each other in those situations.”

 Ryan Marchand Breakdown:

Ryan Marchand Selected Links from the Podcast:

Ryan Marchand
Scott Roth
Kenny Manigault
Byron Mullens
Jeremy Lin
Austin Daye
Joseph Lin
Bobby Knight
Phil Jackson
Kenneth Faried