Mike Taylor, Ettore Messina Playbook, and Crossovers
A transatlantic kind of week...
Welcome to the Slappin’ Glass “Sunday Mornin’ Newsletter”! Where we’re sharing the best ideas, strategies, and coaches from around the world for you to enjoy over your morning coffee.
This week had a touch of Transatlanticism to it, and there’s a ton to dive into…
Slappin Glass Podcast
Our guest on the Slappin’ Glass Podcast this week is the Head Coach of the Polish National Team, Mike Taylor. Not only is Coach Taylor one of the more genuine and positive people we’ve met, he is obviously an elite level coach and thinker and we were lucky to dive into a ton of great concepts he employs at the National Team level.
Along with exploring tactical ideas on building an offensive system, play calling, structuring time-outs, short-shot clock situations, peel-switching, and more, we also highly enjoyed hearing Coach Taylor talk about his philosophy on positive coaching, developing values, innovation, and being a model of consistency as a head coach.
Grab a notebook and you can download the episode HERE.
Ettore Messina
Coach Messina is well known for his stint with the San Antonio Spurs and Gregg Popovich, as well as the influence he had within the organization in bringing a European flare to the “Spurs system”. He returned last year to his native Italy to take over the reigns of Olimpia Milano and they have been fantastic to watch. Here is our breakdown of some of the actions they are currently running in their “Zipper Series”.
Europe/NBA Crossovers
Some of the most fun we have in putting together these breakdowns is finding all of the subtle and un-subtle influences that the international game has on the modern NBA, NCAA, and high school levels. Heck, last year a 4th grader in our summer camp told me he was more of a “stretch 5” that preferred to “pick and pop”, and I almost spilt my coffee…so the influence is far and wide. The kid did have a sweet J.
Over the past few weeks we looked at a Brad Stevens set that was popular with the Canadian National Team, Igor Kokoskov’s use of the “dunker-pin” in Phoenix and now with Fenerbahce, as well as this set from Kokoskov that the Lakers ran for AD. We’ve also looked at the “Horns Backdoor” set from Yale and Stevens, as well as the Double Stagger the Nuggets run for Murray and that Steven’s runs which is popular in many parts of Europe. There are plenty more examples, and we will continue to put these together.
Sets of Week
Some of the best sets of the week include:
{William and Mary/Rasta Vechta} We used a segment from our podcast with Ryan Pannone when he spoke about “Cutting the Stunt”. Love how both of these teams use a “Burn/Clear/45” cut to attack on the pop.
{Loyola Chicago- Pick and Pop Exchange} Porter Moser used this terrific action during their Final Four run a few years ago. Such a unique action that is great for a big that can both shoot and attack the long closeout.
{Erik Spoelstra - SLOB Split Series} We had fun teaming up with Wagner assistant coach, Bobby Jordan, on this edit of the Heat’s fantastic SLOB series. The Heat have been really efficient out of this set all playoffs.
Best from around the World Wide Web
One of our Slappin’ Glass members released his 6th musical album this past Friday and also appeared on the KYP Basketball Podcast to talk coaching, music, and Slappin’ Glass. Word on the street is that the other 1/2 of Slappin’ Glass will be on the KYP podcast next week… no word on whether that member has any albums coming, though he has been known to do a great rendition of “Sweet Caroline” at late night Karaoke bars from time to time.
These 12 Natural Laws of Business are excellent, and pretty dang applicable to running a basketball program as well.
This article on an Elite Athlete’s Real Life Training Plan was inspiring.
Thanks for reading and have a great week,
Dan and Pat