When "I" comes before "Team", the Team comes second.
What a day!! We're at that part of the season where we need to get our team lists and registrations through for the beginning of the Winter basketball season. This is the season where players move from one age group to the next if they are old enough, and there is a lot of jostling for positions going on. This is when you see who is interested in their team's success versus those who are only interested in themselves.
One thing I try to emphasize with my coaching is to try to put the team first, and see what you can do (or not do) to contribute towards making the team stronger and more successful.
For this next season, I decided that we need to go from having 7 players to 8. The reasoning behind this was to give our team extra strength by brining in another good player, and also having insurance against being short of players should someone not be available to play for whatever reason. This season just gone, with 7 players, I found myself fielding a team of 4 or 5 for a game a few times. That made us far less competitive, and cost us enough games to miss playing finals by 1 point. 1 point!!! If only we had that 1 extra player. We're not going through that again. Not on my watch!
If you're watching the clock, you're not in the game
Unfortunately having an extra player has a cost. If we're trying to give everyone equal court time, each player will be playing about 3.5 minutes less per game. BUT!!! That surely means extra rest should allow us to play at a much higher intensity for longer, and be even more competitive right? Apparently not for one of my players. Losing 3 minutes of game time meant that he has decided to leave the team. It seems to him it is more important to have court time than it is for the team to be successful, and have a good chance of making finals, and playing more games... which means more court time! Go figure that one out. A short term gain at the cost of possible 2 whole extra games for the team to play! That is how the I in Team works.... It simply doesn't! If you're more interested in your court time, you're not in it for the team!
I know we're going to be a very strong team this coming season, and have picked up a few really good players. We'll just be missing the one "I" we had. Hopefully we didn't pick up another one!
Teamwork people! Teamwork!! The team makes the player; the player doesn't make the team.
Have a great weekend!
