As I approached the lineup of cars preparing to turn at a stop light, I slowed down because there were two lanes. The right lane had less cars in it and so in the hopes of getting to turn at the next change of lights, I stayed in it. As I pulled past the stopped car on my left, another car was turning into the lane from a parking lot across the road. Given that it’s illegal to cross lanes as you merge into a perpendicular lane, I continued to move forward, assuming the driver merging knew, and was driving by, the same rules of the road as I was. When the driver nearly hit me, I was alarmed. What was more alarming was the non-verbal indignation of the other driver that I had continued to move forward as they tried to cross the first lane to merge into mine. Slightly offended that the driver seemed to be blaming me for the near miss, despite they being the one that didn’t follow the rules of the road, it dawned on me how often it happens that conflict arises when people operate outside expectations. When things go awry and conflict ensues, we often go back to the common set of rules or expectations as to why that conflict ensued. We see it all the time on teams when a player has a turnover. The players involved look at each other in dismay, relying on expectations or rules of play for why the other should’ve done something different.
That same day I was teaching my class their introductory lesson for their one-on-one unit. I played a video wherein Kobe talks about his one-on-one game and says, “to be unstoppable, you first have to be predictable”. The lesson came back to mind as I thought about the driver almost hitting me and how players react to each other when a turnover happens. When players are predictable to each other, turnover rates go down. When turnover rates go down, teams tend to be a lot more successful and start to become, as Kobe said, unstoppable. It’s a good sign that the players are on the same page, and in tune with each other as unit. When turnovers go up, teams not only tend to lose, but communication breaks down as player start to defend their ego by blaming each other. As that happens, communication diminishes. As a result, players start trusting each other less, and start doing more of their own thing, trying to do it all themselves. When that happens, losses invariably pile up. Basketball is a team game. It can’t be won by any one individual, not even the greatest of all time. One of Phil Jackson’s enduring lessons for Michael Jordan was that the team could be more, if Jordan trusted in his teammates more to share the load. Turnovers are always going to happen at some point. They’re unavoidable. They are a sign that the ship is heading in the wrong direction. But the ship can be righted and they can be overcome at any point. There are a few things players and teams can do to limit turnovers.
Almost four years ago to the day, I wrote about one of the common mistakes players make that leads to turnovers. In A Cross Court Pass is A Turnover I spoke of a lesson that I had ingrained in my players to limit turnovers and also gave some specific, common rules coaches make to limit turnovers. Generally speaking however, the principles behind limiting turnovers are universal. The first principle for limiting turnovers relates to Kobe’s message about being unstoppable. Teammates must be predictable to each other. The way they become predictable to each other is two-fold. The first puts the onus on the coach. Teams are predictable to each other because they’re on the same page. They get on the same page when the coach effectively communicates to the team, the time and places for where they’re supposed to be on the court, on both offense and defense. As players commit to their roles and are where they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be there, it then requires a player to go off-script, or become unpredictable, for a turnover to happen. It happens sometimes, but it becomes forgivable when it happens infrequently. The second, puts the onus on the players. The second is that players have to become familiar with each other. Sometimes that just happens. Sometimes, players seem to have a familiarity with each other that goes beyond anything quantifiable in time. That’s extremely rare, almost the stuff of legend! But it does happen, so we know it to be true. More often, players need time to become familiar with each other’s style of play and tendencies to be predictable to each other. Most often it’s some combination of the two. The key in all approaches to limiting turnovers though is effective communication. Whether it’s a coach directing players through their offense, or players learning to play with each other, all involved need to communicate effectively in order to be on the same page. And just as we know they are effective through clear non-verbal communication, we can also tell when they are ineffective through non-verbal communication. Like when someone gets cut off while driving.