Tommy Points For Pop: Heinsohn and Popovich Share Views On Player Development

Heinsohn, Spurs coach share view on player empowerment


Tommy points for Pop




Photo by: The Associated Press
BENCH MARK: Although Tommy Heinsohn was as hotly demonstrative as a coach as he is an TV analyst, he believed in making ‘room for interpretation by players.’


Sunday, March 9, 2014
By:  Steve Bulpett


When Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was speaking about getting his players to take ownership in the offense — about giving them a say in the procedure — it sounded enlightened. It sounded like wisdom. It sounded, in today’s NBA, fresh.

And it sounded exactly like what Tommy Heinsohn had told me years ago about Red Auerbach and, subsequently, his own coaching style.

Tommy smiled last week when getting a chance to discuss coaching philosophy and how a number of leaders choke the fun out of the game for their players. But first let’s check in on what Popovich had to say when asked about getting his Spurs engaged in the attack.

“A lot depends on the competitiveness and the character of the player,” he said. “Often times, I’ll appeal to that — like, “I can’t make every decision for you. I don’t have 14 timeouts. You guys got to get together and talk. You guys might see a mismatch that I don’t see. You guys need to communicate constantly — talk, talk, talk to each other about what’s going on on the court.

“I think that communication thing really helps them. It engenders a feeling that they can actually be in charge. I think competitive character people don’t want to be manipulated constantly to do what one individual wants them to do. It’s a great feeling when players get together and do things as a group. Whatever can be done to empower those people. . . .

“Sometimes in timeouts I’ll say, ‘I’ve got nothing for you. What do you want me to do? We just turned it over six times. Everybody’s holding the ball. What else do you want me to do here? Figure it out.’ And I’ll get up and walk away. Because it’s true. There’s nothing else I can do for them. I can give them some (expletive), and act like I’m a coach or something, but it’s on them. If they’re holding the ball, they’re holding the ball. I certainly didn’t tell them to hold the ball. Just like, if they make five in a row, I didn’t do that. If they get a great rebound, I didn’t do that. It’s a players’ game and they’ve got to perform. The better you can get that across, the more they take over and the more smoothly it runs. Then you interject here or there. You call a play during the game at some point or make a substitution, that kind of thing that helps the team win. But they basically have to take charge or you never get to the top of the mountain.”

Heinsohn’s response to all this?

“Absolutely,” he said. “I did the same thing. It gives them pride of authorship, and they make a commitment in front of their teammates to make something work. I mean, who better than a player knows how a guy’s playing him or how their defending one of your plays? You’ve got to have this on a team. That’s why so many of the Celtic players ended up as coaches over the years. I thought it was very important.”

Clearly, Heinsohn does not fancy the coaches who micromanage the game.

“I call those coaches Prussian generals,” he said. “You’re in the trenches and they’re sending you over the top and into the machine guns. I would never want to play for a guy like that.”

Instead, he favors a more open approach. Heinsohn may be a landscape artist when he puts brush to canvas, but as a coach he was more of an impressionist.

“The players don’t enjoy just playing,” he said. “They enjoy being involved. They don’t just execute; they’re involved in playing the game and making it happen.

“Our basic philosophy was to stick to basic things, not set plays. So there was room for interpretation by players. They enjoyed having their heads worked into it. I mean, we had a system. We had an up-tempo system. But there’s so many things they could read. It was up to them. We had an offense for (Dave) Cowens to play out in a 3-2 offense, so he handled the ball. There were a whole bunch of different things that were involved. My job more often than not was to really check the tempo of the game and get a sense of things. I’d look at fouls and who might be getting beat up on or whatever.

“But you had to get the players’ input. That’s how you get them totally involved. And it’s more fun for them. They’re not just sitting there checking out the cheerleaders. You’re engaging their head in the whole game all the time.”







bob



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Some coaches overcoach and want to control everything, but that kind of coach is more successful at the college level. It's curious that this seems to be such a revelation. Auerbach did it all the time, and it was of course a signature trait of Phil Jackson. There's obviously no love for Jackson around here, but Auerbach, Jackson, and Popovich are obviously three of the most successful coaches in the history of the game, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the three of them have this in common.